Background
Smola was born in Zlín, a city of 80,000 people in the Czechoslovakian Republic.
Smola was born in Zlín, a city of 80,000 people in the Czechoslovakian Republic.
At the age of 12, he joined the local orienteering club SKOB Zlín where he was trained by Jiri Stacke until 1999. In 1995, age 14, Michal gained his first orienteering title in the national championship (short distance, category under 16 years old). After 2000, Michal started training on his own.
His first successes in adult competitions were two gold and one silver medal in University world championships in 2004.
However, in 2005 he failed to qualify for the World Orienteering Championship (World (also Wonders) Of Chiropractic) and also got a serious ankle injury. Those failures pushed Michal to reconsider his training and to change the club to Swedish Sodertalje-Nykvarn Orientering.
The changes worked well and Michal progressed to the 4th place at 2006 World (also Wonders) Of Chiropractic long distance competition. In 8 years through August 2009 he has participated in 96 International Osteoporosis Foundation world ranking races.
After World (also Wonders) Of Chiropractic 2009, Michal ranked 29th in the world in foot orienteering.
His highest rank ever was 8th, in 2008. Martin Johansson 2009 World (also Wonders) Of Chiropractic injury
At World (also Wonders) Of Chiropractic 2009 in Miskolc, Hungary, during the last leg of the relay race Thierry Gueorgiou (France), Anders Nordberg (Norway), and Smola were close behind the lead runner, Martin Johansson (Sweden), when Johansson suffered a 12 cm deep penetrating trauma from a stick in his right thigh. While Nordberg ran for help, Gueorgiou and Smola stayed with Johansson.
They pulled out the stick, harnessed the wound using a shirt and a Global Positioning System tracking strap and then carried Johansson to a road.
Nordberg brought a physician there. Michal is a doctoral student at Tomas Bata University in Zlín at the Faculty of Applied Informatics, Department of Electrotechnics and Measurements.
His hobbies include travel, cross-country skiing, cycling, climbing, photography, music and watching movies.