Jakub Mašek from the Institute of Aerospace Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology (BUT), has added another major sporting achievement to his record. Together with Tomáš Gruna, he won the bronze medal in the Open Pairs Artistic Cycling event at the European Indoor Cycling Championships held in Amorbach, Germany.

The Czech pair advanced through a demanding qualification round to reach the top four teams. In the final, they delivered one of their strongest performances of the season, earning third place and securing the first medal for Czech artistic cycling in the elite category at a major international championship in twenty years.

“Our riders did not perform quite as they had hoped in the qualification round, but in the final they showed what they are capable of and fought their way to bronze. It was certainly one of their best performances of the year,” said national artistic cycling coach Petr Bartůněk.

For Jakub Mašek, the result is further proof of his remarkable ability to combine elite-level sport with an academic career. At the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, he works at the Institute of Aerospace Engineering, focusing on aeronautical and space technologies. He previously also completed an internship at ESA’s ESTEC technology centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

Mašek has been involved in artistic cycling since childhood and is among the Czech Republic’s most successful representatives in the sport. Artistic cycling combines technical difficulty, precision, and balance. During a routine lasting several minutes, athletes perform a series of prescribed elements on specially designed bicycles, with the difficulty of each element contributing to the final score.

We congratulate both athletes on their outstanding achievement and thank Jakub Mašek for representing both the Czech Republic and Brno University of Technology with distinction.