Word: czechs
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...Czech girls sported distinctive red and white jumpers; the Poles, whose national colors the Czechs had appropriated, came decked out in red and khaki. There was color (and congestion) aplenty in Havana last week, as some 18,500 young leftists from 140 countries, attended by 1,500 journalists and 13,000 other visitors, crammed into the Cuban capital for the eleventh World Festival of Youth and Students. The eight-day, $60 million propaganda orgy is socialism's ideological equivalent of a global Scout jamboree. This year, as the festival was held for the first time in the Western Hemisphere...
...long, lonely passage. She was just 16 when she first appeared on the international tennis scene, a chubby-cheeked kid with a big serve and an even bigger appetite for the world beyond the quiet (pop. 5,000) Prague suburb of Revnice in her native Czechoslovakia. While the Czech Tennis Federation looked on with growing dismay, young Martina proved to be as precocious off-court as she was in competition. She relished her increasing celebrity and the freedom that went with it. When Navratilova arrived in some American town for a tournament, boutique owners braced for her spending sprees...
...herself: she rattled easily, making unforced errors, while her concentration wandered. Still she climbed into the top ten on the strength of undisciplined talent, and at age 18 found that her zest for the life of the world class star she was becoming had outrun the indulgence of Czech authorities...
...fearful that a crackdown would prohibit further international competition, Navratilova defected to the U.S. It was an awesome step. For all her on-court panache and off-court sophistication, she was very young-and now she was quite alone. Navratilova probably can never return to her homeland, and Czech officials have refused to allow her parents to visit her in the West. (An appeal by her father, a factory economist, for permission to go to Wimbledon was turned down...
Before her center-court final, Navratilova admitted that more than a title was at stake for her in tennis' premiere event. A Wimbledon victory represented vindication for this intensely proud and moody young Czech. "The Czech papers don't print my name," she said. "That's why I want to win Wimbledon. They'll have to print my name then." Her exile's journey ended with a sharp backhand volley at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. No less a traveler than Chris Evert acknowledged: "She has been through a lot of hurt...