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Swimmer Simona Kubová has become the first Czech to make the cut for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo after she won the 100 metres backstroke at an event in Eindhoven in a time of 59.66 seconds on Saturday. Kubová also reached the limit required for this year’s swimming world championship in South Korea.

The 27-year-old’s time on Saturday was just a tenth of a second outside her own Czech record, which she set two years ago under her maiden name Baumrtová.

Vít Rakušan, the mayor of Kolín, has been elected leader of the Mayors and Independents, the smallest party in the Czech lower house, at a congress in Prague. He was the only candidate for the post and replaces outgoing chairman Petr Gazdík.

Mr. Rakušan says he aims to not only help the Mayors and Independents remain in the Chamber of Deputies but to take at least 10 percent of the vote.

He says if the party play a role in the next Czech government they will push for reform of education, the social system and the public administration.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is considering creating the new position of vice prime minister for the economy. He revealed the idea in an interview in Saturday’s edition of Lidové noviny. Mr. Babiš also said he planned to keep the number of ministers in his cabinet the same but wanted to introduce a third deputy PM. This could be Karel Havlíček, the future minister of industry and trade, the newspaper wrote.

Also set to join the ANO-Social Democrats front bench is Vladimír Kremlík, who will take the transport portfolio.

The Czech ice hockey legend Jaromír Jágr scored two goals for Kladno in a key game on Friday night. The 47-year-old helped the club to a 3:1 win over Chomutov that gave Kladno an eight-point lead on their opponents and hugely boosted their chances of winning promotion to Czech hockey’s top flight.

Jágr, who began his career at Kladno, earned the second most points in NHL history and is considered one of the greatest players of all time.

Sunday should see some rain and even snow in the Czech Republic, with maximum temperatures of up to 10 degrees Celsius. Daytime highs are then expected to climb through the week to reach up to 20 degrees Celsius at Easter weekend.

A book that President Miloš Zeman’s office funded was published by a group that supports Russian president Vladimir Putin, iDnes.cz reported. The publication about the game park at the Czech president’s Lány residence received CZK 1.4 million in public money, the news site said.

The publisher then donated CZK 100,000 to the pro-Putin nationalist group Řád národa (Order of the Nation), which was running in elections to the lower house and whose newspaper it also produces. Mr. Zeman helped launch the book at Lány.

Czech mothers are planning protests against a bank accused of refusing to allow a woman to breastfeed on its premises. Mothers around the country came together on Facebook and decided to breastfeed their children at branches of Raiffeisenbank bank at 11 am on Monday.

The main gathering will be at the branch on Prague’s Wenceslas Square where the conflict between a mother and security took place. The bank said its employee had not thrown the woman out but only asked her to cover herself. It sent a letter of apology to the client in question.

Saturday will be cloudy with rain across most of Moravia and Silesia. Temperatures are set to hover between 6 to 9 degrees Celsius.

Slavia Prague lost 1:0 in their home game to Chelsea in Thursday’s first-leg of the Europa League quarter-finals. The Czech team, which is currently in high-form, held the score level for most of the game. It was only in the 86th minute that Chelsea wing-back Marco Alonso managed to score what would end up being the only goal of the game, securing Chelsea a hard-fought win away from home.

Both Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri and British newspapers praised the aggressiveness of the Czech team, which made the away team’s defence sweat.

In Thursday’s second leg, Slavia will have to score at least one goal at Stamford Bridge in order to have any hope of advancing into the semi-finals.

Police are investigating a case in the South Bohemian city of Tábor where a group of thieves used a mace while breaking into a man’s house. The owner managed to defend himself and the mace was left at the scene after the robbers ran away. South Bohemian police are currently searching for the owner of the 50cm long object, whose head is covered in protruding wooden spikes.

Czech media have been quick to pick up on the irony that the mace attack took place in Tábor; it was the ancient capital of the mediaeval Hussites and their leader, Jan Žižka, is often depicted holding the weapon in his hand.