Lukas Matys
Lukas Matys - World Sport Events Director
Lukas Matys’ wealth of experience includes working in the highest management in the London Olympics and Paralympics Games, Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and organising the very first Triathlon Event in Azerbaijan. His sports expertise comes not only from event organisation, he also holds the title of a World Champion in quadrathlon from 2006, Canada.
Lukas Matys, born in 1981, grew up in Decin, Czech Republic where he participated in and also organised his first triathlon. From Decin he made it to world Games organisation and became the first Czechman to be part of senior management of the Olympic Games, London.
Thanks to countless of races he’s participated and won in, he’s realised what he loves about the organisation of the Games. So he decided to jump on the “Games Train”. As an Economics graduate, among other universities, from prestigious Grenoble Graduate School of Business, he’s experienced the corporate office life at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Prague. Despite the opinions of friends and family, he’s decided to quit this job and follow his dreams into the uncertainty of sports events and he’s never looked back.
His passion for sport comes not only from personal experience as an athlete, but also from organising world class events - ones that bring excitement and emotions. He explains that he loves working in a field that has its peak clearly defined. Unlike working in a corporation, a race has a clear finish line and a goal to work towards. Sport is not only great in supporting competition among people, but it also promotes healthy lifestyle and he wants to be the ambassador of this lifestyle.
Lukas is a world traveller. He lived in France, United Kingdom, Azerbaijan and New Zealand before coming to Australia. He also has a keen eye for visual art, which you can see when he is in charge or Triathlon Australia’s Instagram account, his stories are among the most popular. This also pushes his creativity and interest in marketing and social media. He loves the never-ending summer of Australian Gold Coast, but also misses snowboarding, which is one of many sports he enjoys.
Canoeing and Rowing 2006 - 2013 Canoeing was his sport from early childhood, so it makes sense that would be where he’d start his sport events career. Lukas was representing his country as a junior. Four times he’s won the title of a champion in the Czech Republic. And on an international level, he scored fourth place in France. Soon he started as a helping hand in the Canoeing and Rowing Organising Committees in Racice. Thanks to his fluent German and English, he was soon noticed by Zdenek Pecka - a former Olympian and according to Lukas - a great boss. To this day, he feels that this was the start of his event organising career. Under the leadership of Zdenek, Lukas helped organise three World Cups, European Championship and four World Championships. This opened the doors for him and Vancouver 2010.
Xterra 2008 - 2013 Xterra was the first step into organising triathlon events. With a group of friends Lukas has decided to bring this global event into his hometown Decin. The Xterra race series is the best-known series of cross triathlons. This triathlon event was successful until the year 2013, which was its last year.
Vancouver 2010 The winter Olympics in Vancouver was his first step abroad as an employee of the Czech Olympic Committee. This was a big break for him where he’s realised he cannot miss the next Olympics. As an attaché for important clients and guests, he got to enjoy the Olympic atmosphere for the first time and meet a lot of brilliant people in sport.
London Olympics 2012 - Canoe Spring Technical Operations Manager In 2011, Lukas took a chance, sent his polished resume, aced his hour and a half long Skype interview and got the job. Surely his lovable personality and positive attitude did the job. And he’s aced it, afterwards it has been one job offer after another. He’s even been offered to continue his contract throughout the London Paralympics.
During his experience in the London Olympics, his office was in Canary Wharf and his sporting venue in Eton Dorney. Some of his many responsibilities included leading a team of 84 people, oversee all of technical equipment of the venue, working with the sports television broadcast OBS, but also water safety. Needless to say that working on the London Olympics was a busy and an intense job.
His mornings usually started around 4AM, he often sat on a kayak himself and did a round around the race course to see everything from the perspective of a race participant. On a daily basis throughout the games, the gates would let through up to 22 thousand spectators.
This event showed Lukas’ many top qualities - stress management, crisis management or analytical thinking. This intense experience have opened up his expertise even further, among other things, he’s learned what it’s like to work in a very multicultural environment. Learning how other people from different cultures work and think.
The London Olympics also proved that Lukas has done the right thing leaving corporate environment behind, taking the leap into World Sports Events. The atmosphere is not like any other. Nowhere else you will get a chance to work with people that are extremely motivated and really want to do the job.
Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014 - Triathlon Competition Manager Glasgow has brought new challenges for Lukas, leading a team of almost 300 people, he was responsible for all three sports - swim, bike, run. The Commonwealth Games 2014 Triathlon. Everything went perfectly, he’s received praise from ITU federation, but also Alistair Brownlee himself, who proclaimed he’d love to participate in more races like this one. Before the Games were even over, Lukas got the attention from European Games in Baku and he’s been drafted into another country.
European Games Baku 2015 Despite having been part of world events before, Lukas claims that the triathlon race is Baku is still to this day his biggest challenge. It’s a massive difference organising sport events in the United Kingdom, where there’s a long standing tradition of high quality sport events. Triathlon basically did not exist in this part of the world and Lukas got a chance to bring the very first one in Azerbaijan as a part of the European Games. He was lucky, he got to bring part of his team from Glasgow, however many others and the volunteers had zero experience with triathlon events. One of the biggest tasks was finding the right location. In Azerbaijan, never having hosted a triathlon on the world scale before, Lukas was faced with creating the race course from mud - literally. Even here in Baku, Lukas was responsible for more than 300 people in his team, all the safety precautions and most importantly the water safety, which is one of his long standing passions.
Gold Coast 2016 - present Australia is the mecca of triathlon and it is one of the most popular sports in the country. As a National Events and Technical Manager, Lukas has his hands full with countless of events across the vast country and abroad. This job has been a shift from organising the events to a more strategic planning of all the races across the country. Lukas himself dedicates his time to more prominent events such as World Championships, WTS, Ironman or the very recent Commonwealth Games 2018 or the WTS Grand Final. As a part of Triathlon Australia, they sanction events, control the quality and safety of events and train technical officials. Lukas’ main objective is creating the right vision for Triathlon Australia for the upcoming years.
Other interesting facts about Lukas
- Lukas was selected in a lottery for a run through the Olympic Park. This race for 5000 participants was started by Princess Beatrice. These participants were the first ones to cross the finish line ready for the 2012 London Olympics.
Lukas was a support to his friend Martin Gabla during world’s most extreme triathlon Celtman.
- Lukas is extremely passionate about water safety and would like to venture further into this matter and create more awareness about the importance of water safety.
Media Publications: http://www.forbes.cz/od-snu-na-olympiadu-pribeh-cecha-ktery-se-dostal-do-nejvyssiho-managementu-her/
https://www.izun.eu/sport/lukas-matys-z-czu-pres-francii-az-na-olympiadu
https://sport.idnes.cz/evropske-hry-matys-0of-/sporty.aspx?c=A150520_094506_sporty_fil
http://www.decin.cz/2012/04/kluk-z-decina-ridi-olympiadu-ziju-svuj-sen-hlasi-manazer-z-londyna/
https://oh.idnes.cz/manazer-londyn-glasgow-07h-/sport_oh.aspx?c=A140810_210053_sport_oh_fil
References[edit]
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