Olga Fikotová

Olga Connolly ( Fikotová; , 13 November 1932 – 12 April 2024) was 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.

Biography 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 1956 Olympics when she won with a throw of 53.69 m, beating 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 Antonín Zápotocký, who met the couple a few days before the wedding.

The couple moved to the United States after the wedding.

The couple appeared on 10 June 1958 episode the game show To Tell the Truth, in which each one was shown alongside two impostors, and a panel attempted to guess who the real one was.

After moving to the U.S., Fikotová wanted to continue representing Czechoslovakia, but the Czechoslovak Olympic Committee refused to allow her to do. The committee spread the word that she had refused to represent Czechoslovakia, and she was ostracized by several of her former compatriots for years before the truth became known. They remained married for 17 years before getting divorced in 1975.

Fikotová later became a certified exercise therapist specializing in holistic fitness studies and training. She instructed a wellness program at the University of California at Irvine until 2017, then relocated to Nevada where she coached fitness and wellness at the EoS Fitness Club in Las Vegas.

Fikotová died from cancer in Costa Mesa, California on 12 April 2024, at the age of 91.