Olga Connolly
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| Born |
Template:Birth-date 13 November 1932 Libiš, near by Prague, Czech Republic |
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| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Athletics | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Event(s) | Discus throw | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | RH Praha (CZE) Spartan Women's Athletic Club (USA) Los Angeles Mercurettes (USA) |
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| Achievements and titles | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal best(s) | 57.61 m (1972) | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Olga Fikotová (Czech pronunciation: [ˈolɡa ˈfɪkotovaː], born 13 November 1932) is a Czechoslovak and later American discus thrower. She is best known for winning gold at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and for her romance across Cold War barriers with American hammer gold medalist Hal Connolly.
A natural athlete, she represented Czechoslovakia in basketball and handball before switching to discus throw in 1954. Two years later, she was still a medical student at the Charles University in Prague when she competed for Czechoslovakia in the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia in the Discus. The 24-year-old became Czechoslovakia's only gold medalist at the Olympics when she won the event with a throw of 53.69 m ahead of Soviet pair Irina Beglyakova (52.54 m) and Nina Ponomaryova (52.02 m).
Half a century later, she commented on her rapid progress:
During the games she fell in love with the American athlete Harold Connolly who won the hammer throw.
The romance was well received by the Western media and public but not as popular with the Czechoslovak team minders. Several months later, Connolly visited her home in Prague where they planned to get married. Fikotová was surprisingly given a permit to marry a foreigner, possibly due to the positive involvement of Czechoslovak president , who met the couple a few days before the wedding.
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Wikipedia