The big prize

Another calamity! Zatopek was supposed to get a very nice prize from the club and from us. But, God knows, there was some confusion and the prize we wanted to give him did not arrive in time.

All the disciples had was a very tiny — tinier than the tiniest — medallion. I said, "What am I going to do?" Abarita said, "What can you do? If you don't give a big prize, what will everyone think?" The disciples thought it would look odd for people to see such a tiny thing, so they wrapped a very big chocolate bar and put the medal on top.

But that night we compensated for this and gave Zatopek some very nice things that he liked — a very big cuckoo clock and other things. We told him afterwards that the other prize was all deception. But what could we do? Thousands of people were watching.