Posted on 03/11/2008 11:31:05 AM PDT by Arnold Zephel
Martina Navratilova, the former world number one tennis star, said yesterday that she had regained Czech nationality more than 30 years after fleeing its communist rule to live in the US.
The 51-year-old, who won the Wimbledon singles title a record nine times, said that she was maintaining dual nationality and keeping her US passport.
But her announcement, at a Tokyo press conference, raised questions over whether she planned to leave America, after a series of controversial attacks on President Bush and the Republican party.
Born in Prague, Navratilova defected to the United States in 1975 aged 18, angering the communist authorities who stripped her of her nationality. She was granted a green card within a month and US citizenship six years later.
Navratilova said last year that while she was once ashamed about Czechoslovakia, she was now ashamed of the United States under Mr Bush. “The thing is that we elected Bush. That is worse! Against that, nobody chose a communist government in Czechoslovakia,” she told the Czech daily Lidove Noviny.
In 2002, she told a German newspaper: “The most absurd part of my escape from the unjust system is that I have exchanged one system that suppresses free opinion for another. The Republicans in the US manipulate public opinion and sweep controversial issues under the table. It’s depressing. Decisions in America are based solely on the question of how much money will come out of it and not on the questions of how much health, morals or environment suffer as a result.”
Navratilova was confronted with her comments in July 2002 by Connie Chung, then a CNN talk show host, who told the tennis star that when she read them, “I wanted to say, go back to Czechoslovakia. You know, if you don’t like it here, this is a country that gave you so much, gave you the freedom to do what you want.”
Czechoslovakia split in 1993 after the fall of communism into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Navratilova, winner of 59 Grand Slam titles, came out publicly in 1981 about her lesbianism, shortly after being granted US citizenship. She pointed out that under communist rule in Czechoslovakia, “gays were sent to insane asylums and lesbians never came out of the closet.”
She retired in 1994 but returned to play doubles in 2000, again winning several tournaments. She definitively hung up her racket in December 2006 after winning in mixed doubles at the US Open, the 354th tournament of her career.
She is planning to open an academy for young tennis players in the Czech Republic.
Don’t let the door hit you where the Creator split you.
I think Vaclev Havel is to the right of GWB. He openly declares global warming to be a political scam. Navratilova is an idiot - an ungrateful idiot.
Where?
One less ugly ass washed up dyke....UM....OKAY
Good riddance. One less troublesome, sanctimonious, vice-ridden limosine-liberal, semi-celebrity to worry about.
“It was nauseating to have to call her an American.”
She is still an American.
These acronyms are getting to be more than I can keep up with.
http://tinyurl.com/33wrpt
IAWYTTARGTBMTICKUW
Don’t let the door hit Ya in the ass, Nav.
she (or is it he ?) needs to hang up more than her racket
LOL!!!!
I can’t even bring myself to bump that sorry-ass thread.
Door...ass.
Great. So the US od A was good enough for this stupid twunt to come to and make her millions, and now that she’s got hers, we’re trash. Like Shania Twain — she’ll live in Switzerland and badmouth the US, but our cash is green enough for her.
Closets may hve been a problem, but at least there was the Defenestration of Prague.
I wish her a happy and swift return to her native country of Lesbovia.
Little does she know, Bushitler never plans to leave office.
On September 11, 2008, he plans to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law. All opponents will be rounded up and sent to re-education camps.
It’s a good thing that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been personally monitoring all phone and e-mail activity for the last several years just to be sure who the enemies are.
Thank you.
So glad she’s gone...she was a poor representative of everything except how to play tennis well.
I wonder if she ever finished the book she was writing about how to play tennis, I heard the title was going to be, “How To Lick Your Opponent.”
Is she leaving all those evil American dollars behind? Didn’t think so.
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