Antiquated trams snake through rows of tenement housing blocks across a flat cityscape scarred by an industrial revolution that thrived on the city's coalfields.
Once dubbed the "steel heart" of the country, Ostrava's last coal mine closed in 1994 and the blast furnace shut down four years later.
"Ostrava is a steel city, famous for being a dark city, steel workers, a hard city," admitted Alfons Juck, organiser of the prestigious IAAF World Challenge Golden Spike meeting.
But Juck has pushed the boat out for Bolt, who makes his ninth appearance in Ostrava on Wednesday, bringing kudos and publicity for the third-largest city in the Czech Republic that straddles the border of the historic provinces of Moravia and Silesia.
"Bolt was a talent. We see up-and-coming athletes and invite them," Juck told AFP, the Jamaican having first been invited in 2004 as a junior before making his actual debut in 2006.
