Deep in the cold Snowy Mountains lives the man who holds the title of Australia's oldest living Olympic Games participant. It's therefore no surprise to hear that Frank Prihoda was born in 1921, just five years short of a century - in Czechoslovakia.
Modern skiers, who were visiting the popular Thredbo region, were able to see Frank hitting the slopes up until very recently, even aged over 90.
Chatting to SBS Czech from inside the tiny Thredbo Ski museum where he still works as a volunteer, just over the creek from the long chairlift up to Mt. Kosciuszko, Prihoda tells the story of how he came to be involved in skiing.
Listen to Frank Prihoda's full interview (in Czech) with SBS Czech, below:Frank Prihoda (Frantisek Prihoda) arrived to Australia in 1950 and immediately began working in an artificial flower factory in Melbourne, because his family had a similar business in Czechoslovakia (known as the Czech Republic since 1993) which had been taken over by the totalitarian communist regime of the era.
"Later, I also gained experience in the Australian mining sector, but soon I realized that mica mining in the middle of Australia wasn’t the job for me," Frank tells SBS Czech.
Mr Prihoda was one of the European pioneers of skiing in Australia, but the way in which he first got involved in skiing was interesting as well.
"My sister Sasha Nekvapilova was a multiple Czechoslovakian champion in skiing and I participated on these events too," he says.
"In 1951 my sister and her husband established a Ski school in Mt. Buller and later I became a member of Kandahar - the racing department of Ski Club of Victoria.”
Czechoslovakia was not known for having the highest European mountains, but the snowfall levels used to be much higher than today and skiing was pretty popular in those early days.
Chairlifts at Thredbo Source: SBS Czech
"Jan Vagner and I, we were teaching younger Aussie guys according to what we had learnt in Czechoslovakia, and [subsequently] later, the ski organizations in Victoria and NSW grew up.”
As to how he came to end up living in Thredbo, Frank explains, "My sister had a ski lodge in Thredbo and I wanted to move here for a longer time, but I didn’t want to become a skiing instructor."
Frank and his sister Sasha's business was one of the first Ski lodges to exist in New South Wales.
"Accidentally, in 1974, I took over a store her, formerly selling hand craft products and later a souvenir shop with some accessories for skiers,” says Frank.
Frank Prihoda at Thredbo Ski Museum, where he is also vice-president of the Thredbo Historical Society Source: Supplied - SBS Czech
He ran the store until 2001, when he was 80 and the lease ended.
In 1956, Frank competed in alpine skiing at the Olympic Games in the Italian town of Cortina d’Ampezzo.
"We arrived to Cortina in January 1956, but my way there was much longer," he explains.
"I used given travel money to contribute to my around-the-world ticket, which was around 300 pounds at that time."
"I was not particularly happy about my result, but it was a very hard race, because the slalom had 92 gates, which is almost double compared to nowadays standards."
"With my starting number 120, I managed to end 54th."
"We had an Austrian coach, but our Australian team of four men and one woman wasn’t very strong and we lacked experience at big time racing as well."
Since 2001 you can find Frank at Thredbo’s Ski museum.
Source: SBS Czech
"At one stage it was taking me a lot of time, but I have to take care of my investments as well, because I don’t receive pension."
"Further, I have a lot of friends so I travel a lot. Just last year, I went to Prague for a month, so I keep myself busy,” says Frank.
Visiting the Ski museum in Thredbo is recommended, but Frank is not available all the time: “Of course people are welcomed here, but I’m not here all the opening hours. Also, during summer our museum is opened just on weekends.”
