Jim,

As as far as I understand it. Andrea was training for the Atlanta '98 Olympics. During that time she had an accident diving off from the 10m tower. She broke her back and was paralyzed for a time. She spent at least three months recuperating in a special hospital. Her severe headaches that led to the CT and the MRI scans, that discovered the cancerous growth in her brain was thought at first to be the cause of the diving accident. I believe she has something fused in her back also or maybe it was her neck. But her being on the team I believe that is accurate. If anyone has photos of her during that time I would like them to share as that must of been a great time of her life until the diving accident.

I read on condolence board you form USA. How you know much of her?

Yes, it's Lea/Andrea, all photos are hers.

Here:

Tím objektem byla dvacetipětiletá dívka Andrea Absolonová. Vše začalo otázkou mířenou na její tělo a to, že vypadá jako nějaká skokanka do vody. Odpověď byla více než vystihující. Andrea Absolonová je několikanásobná mistryně České republiky a držitelka bronzové medaile z mistrovství Evropy. Následovala druhá otázka, proč musí takovýto sportovec fotit namísto tréninku. Odpověď byla neméně výstižná, Andrea si tak vydělává na pronájem bazénu. Její situace není totiž růžová, poté, co ji cestováníchtiví funkcionáři upřeli naprosto jasnou nominaci pro Olympijské hry v Atlantě, je jejím hlavním cílem Sydney 2000.

The object was twentyfive years old girl Andrea Absolonova. Everything started with question about her body and that she is loking like some diver.

Andrea Absolonova is multiple times diving champion of  Czech Republik and holds a bronze medail from European diving championship.

Why must such champion do photo modeling instead of training? Answer was no less fitting. Andrea is earning money for swimming pool rental.

Her situation is not rosy, after travel greedy buerocrats rejected her absolutely obvious nomination for 1998 Olympic in Atlanta, her major goal is now Sydney 2000. 

Thank you very much for the translation, kvik! I don't want to ask you to translate the whole text, because it is very long, but if the rest is also about Andrea, it would be very kind of you, if you could perhaps summarize it in a few words. Many thanks in advance.

http://www.part.cz/zika/skokanka.htm

Here is what is relevant about Andrea (rest are just technical details - Kodak, Nikon T MAX etc.)

Just to jump without swimsuit (headline of article)

Adolf Zika is czech photographer specializating in women erotic photography. Zika claims that he himself is usually choosing his own models, but this time he used casting agency. This exemption paid off because he found "objekt" for one of his most interesting calendars ever.

That "objekt" was twentyfive year old girl Andrea Absolonova.

 Everything started with question about her body and that she is looking like some diver.

Andrea Absolonova is multiple times diving champion of  Czech Republik and holds a bronze medal from European diving championship.

Why such champion must do photo modeling instead of training? Answer was no less fitting. Andrea is earning money for swimming pool rental.

Her situation is not rosy, after travel greedy bureaucrats rejected her absolutely obvious nomination for 1998 Olympic in Atlanta, her major goal is now Sydney 2000. 

The idea was born and what remained was to take photo of Andrea haw she is doing her olympic dive naked when that nakedness was supposed to symbolize independence on anything what can prevent human effort.

Zika got interested in his idea Miroslav Housaka, creative director I.P. raklama company, latter named W.I.P. reklama. Final decision was for corporate calendar year 1999.  

Final realization became of by course discussion  between me (Zika) and Andrea, because professional divers usually don't jump daily in Eve's costume. This part of production went well because both parties had the same opinion: Let’s go. We have chosen Andrea Absolonova domestic swimming pool in Pardubice. 

For a dive the have chosen 7 meter and 3.5 meter diving boards.

Andrea kept diving and didn't seem to by willing to get rid of her swimsuit. Zika began to feel nervous because Andrea continued diving in swimsuit and action looked like fiasco. So finally he hinted: let’s go now. Andrea jumped one more time in swimsuit and then suddenly without ... What fallowed was half hour of her most interesting jumps in her life, continue Zika.

Whole action was successful and had fallowing in company W.I.P. reklama s.r.o.  billboard advertisement in Czech Republik and Austria.

-----------------------

Do you understand now what happened? Do you see Andrea completely desperate to continue her training for Sydney olympic and therefore signing for casting agency, so she could pay miserable pool rental? Can you imagine stress she went through? Do you know now what has caused that tragic dive and what has really broken her spine and later her life?

PS: Andrea’s Photographer Adolf Zika has web page zde je forum:

http://www.part.cz/zika/forum.htm

If you want translation just post it in English and I will translate to Czech.

Zika is now somewhere in Lanzarote and his last reply to forum are from March 8.

>>>Zika is now somewhere in Lanzarote and his last reply to forum are from March 8.<<<

Sorry I didn't notice that the forum is long time dead.