Falling in Love with Bike Polo
What is bike polo? Bike polo is a team sport. A team consists of three players on bikes who try to hit the ball into the opposing team’s goal using a mallet. They are not allowed to touch the floor with their feet – if this happens they cannot intervene in the game until they have hit the designated area with their mallet. The game ends either after ten minutes or when a team has scored five goals. Janku: “A few minutes changed my life” “One-handed cycling was completely new to me”, explains Jirka Janku, a Czech bike polo player from Prague, when looking back at his first (bicycle) test rides. “Holding a mallet at the same time seemed impossible. However, after a brief familiarisation period, I found it much easier and the game became more fun by the minute.” Today, Janku is a multiple tournament champion and even reached fifth place at the world championships in New Zealand in February 2016. “A few minutes at the beginning of my bike polo career changed my life dramatically. I bec...