The baroque cathedral and adjacent Zócalo square was crammed with fifty to one hundred thousand people, according to the press. The Mexicans were crazed, their “goddess Vera”, the Miss Olympics, was getting married!
Neither the bride, in her gold embroidered snow-white dress, nor the groom had the faintest idea that this might be a matter of life and death. Originally they wanted a small shrine in the Olympic campus, but in the end not even the cathedral could accommodate the crowds that assembled. They even needed bodyguards to get to the altar. Walking through the cathedral was impossible so they had to go through the back into the sacristy. There were so many journalists and photographers that the bride even lost her crown in the hustle.
The Olympic security men made a circle around us so that we could go through at least a shortened ceremony,
V. Čáslavská described the situation. The famous couple were wedded by the Czech ambassador in Mexico, Karel Hanuš.
The marriage, however, didn’t work that well and ended in divorce after 19 years. Čáslavská stayed single, Odložil got married again and had another two children. In 1993 he died tragically at the age of only 55. After 1989, Čáslavská returned into the public domain and for six years held the post of Chairwoman of Czechoslovakian and later the Czech Olympic Committee. After the event of a family tragedy she stepped down and remained in privacy.
For Mexico, 1968, Věra Čáslavská was a heroine.
