Pentathlon Personalities: Matej Lukes (CZE) on love, tragedy and discovery

Matěj Lukeš had been on the road for a month. His tired, heavy backpack was filled with the usual stuff: toiletries running low, some souvenirs for loved ones and a lot of laundry. Suddenly, as soon as he touched down, he had to find his most precious souvenir. 

A surprise delegation had arrived at Prague Airport to welcome Lukeš home and wanted to see only one thing – the gold medal he had secured in Guiyang, China which confirmed him as UIPM World Champion. One problem: he hadn’t seen it in weeks.

“After leaving [Guiyang], I put it in my bag and saw it maybe once. When I got back to Prague, they came with a surprise and there was a limousine. It was super cool,” Czechia’s newest champion says.

"My family and my team was inside the car. Everyone wanted to see the medal for photos and I was like ‘oh no, oh s***, I haven’t seen it for two weeks’. I tried to find it and was a little bit nervous. ‘Where is it?’ But, eventually, it was [there].”

Lukeš’ totemic triumph, winning his first major championship gold medal at youth, junior or senior level in emphatic fashion, was a fitting end to 18 months of brilliant consistency. It was a hard-earned rest that he took afterwards. Along with girlfriend Laura Heredia, the Paris 2024 Olympian and current No.3 in the women’s world rankings, he unwound by travelling across Vietnam and Thailand.

In the immediate aftermath of winning the biggest prize of the Pentathlon season, Lukeš told the live TV broadcast he was “up in the sky”. He’d stay there for some time. 

“It was like really being in heaven. I was lying on a cloud on the beach and was like ‘please, one more cocktail’,” the 24-year-old laughs. “I talked with myself in my mind and said ‘come on, do nothing now. Enjoy doing nothing’. We still had an active holiday because we walked a lot, some culture, temples and these things. It was amazing.”

So too was the homecoming. Lukeš has been thrust into a whirlwind of media attention, UIPM News catching up with him late one evening as he prepped for a very early appearance on Czechia’s leading breakfast TV show the next morning. Smiling faces are everywhere. But one of the first faces he saw after touching down in Prague meant the most. 

Tomáš Lukeš has raised four very energetic sons. Three of them are currently athletes competing on global stages. The patriarch was, according to his eldest son, "a swimmer, triathlete, pentathlete. Canoeing too. Never a professional but always with passion”. Tomáš was still competing last year, when tragedy struck. 

In a local competition, he took a heavy fall from his bike all the way into a river below. Unconscious in the water, the actions of a bystander helped to save his life. He was left in a wheelchair, and his sons, who’d lost beloved mother Helena to illness four years earlier, were gravely concerned. 

“My daddy, he behaved like a real hero,” says Lukeš. "He said ‘just come here, boys. It can’t be worse. I won’t jump from the window so don’t be worried!’ We were always close and this connected us even more.

“He has progressed in one year what people in the same situation would do in five years. Now he drives alone in the car. He can spend many days alone without help. I don’t see him every day. Maybe one time in two weeks I see him and his progress is unbelievable.

“It [happened] a few weeks before the [2025] World Championships in Kaunas. So that was even more emotional [than 2026],” adds Lukeš, who also made the podium in that competition. "In fact, the bronze medal was much more emotional than the gold one this year because it was a first medal for me, individual in Europeans or Worlds, and because my father had a big accident.

“Now he has recovered super-fast. Me and my brothers are so happy and positive because he survived. It’s easy to say we can sad … but why? We know that it could have been much worse.”

Lukeš is as prolific a talker as he is a performer across all five of Pentathlon’s sports. His answers are rarely short, especially when he’s talking about Laura and his other loved ones. But an enquiry as to how much his father’s attitude and recovery has helped inspire him this season elicits just one solitary word: “Unlimitedly.”

Tomáš and his wife Helena encouraged young Matěj to live without limits. Now that he sits atop the world, it may seem natural that he was destined to be a great athlete. Brothers Simon (16) and Jenik (14) are prodigious performers in global canoeing competitions too, so the athletic prowess is clearly genetic. But young Matěj had a musical side too. 

“I remember when I was six or seven years old, I did some tests in the school and they asked me what I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be a professional athlete – or a guitarist,” he laughs. “The next year I started to play the guitar and it was not just the guitar ... I had to learn the notes. That was a no-go zone for me. So from that time I was like a full focus for sport.

“Sport mainly came from my daddy. My mum was the best fun that I ever had [with anyone], that’s for sure. It was my mum who made me fall in love with competing. She was always cheering, always making it such great fun.”

Keeping it fun is still a huge focus for Lukeš. A joke or a self-deprecating quip is rarely far away. While he adores the constant effort of training, ensuring that everything is done with a light heart is a focus. His coaches – “the smartest people in Pentathlon who I ever saw” – help. Laura plays a huge role, too. 

The pair have been in a relationship for over a year. It would appear to be very good for both of them – Heredia claimed two major medals for Spain this past season too. 

“Well, now she is my life,” Lukeš says of his other half. “We are doing everything together. She is so inspirational for me because she is more calm [than me] in situations. She is watching from above on many things when I’m nervous and she is not. Me too, I think I help her a lot. With Obstacle Racing, I think it was harder for her than with me. I am so happy that we share this way. 

“This season we had a system. It worked for us. We were 10 days together in Barcelona, then I would come back to Prague and 10 days later she would come to me for 10 days. This little 10-day system we had.

“This year, the idea is that I will be more in Barcelona until the New Year and she will then come here [in January]. We are not the only couple like this [in Pentathlon]. I hope we can be an inspiration for some younger pentathletes who I know are in relationships too. It’s working.”

The extended break in southeast Asia gave their minds and bodies time to rest. Also their hands. The demands of Obstacle Racing are tough on the fingers. Leading pentathletes such as Great Britain’s Kerenza Bryson have shared on social media the blisters caused by intense training on the rings and bars. During the interview we ask Lukeš to show his rested hands, and he proudly raises perfect palms. 

“Now I can take care of my girlfriend for the first time in a year without pain,” he laughs, as he mimics rubbing Laura's neck.

Soon, he’ll be back with her in Barcelona and already training for next season. He’ll be working more on his Spanish too – “I hope it’s better and better. Laura has a bigger challenge trying to learn Czech!” Halfway through an Olympic cycle, he’s on top of the world and has his proud family on board for the ride. He’ll be 26 by the time the biggest prize of all is on offer at Los Angeles 2028. That should be his prime, right?

“Like probably all pentathletes, the Olympic Games is the biggest goal, is the dream for sure. This is for sure the biggest dream but I’m not sure of my prime, because you don’t know what is the prime age for pentathletes any more,” Lukeš says.

“Two years ago, it was around 30. Now it’s much closer to 20, so maybe I’ve skipped it! In one year, have I skipped it? I don’t know. We discover every year.”

By Joe Callaghan