František Příhoda

"I can't say exactly when skiing started in Australia, but in 1936 there was a visit to Mount Buller, an American downhill team came and there were races. So the sport of skiing was well known and very popular in certain circles. But the total number of people was quite negligible. However, from 1954, 1955 and 1956 onwards, skiing became very active, and by the sixties skiing had become quite an important sport. The Australian attitude towards skiing was positive."-"What made you move to the small village of Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains? Was it skiing?"-"There were various circumstances, my sister and brother-in-law had a lodge here, it was called Saša's lodge and it was the second commercial lodge to open in Thredbo, they opened it in 1959. That was another attraction and the other attraction was that I liked the snow life and I wanted to ski. In September 1974 I met Albert van der Lee, he was a family friend and a good acquaintance of mine. We met in Cooma, we agreed on a lease in December and before Christmas 1974 I came and opened a shop in Thredbo, a so-called arts and crafts shop."-"As you mentioned, you were not the only Czech in the Snowy Mountains, so I wonder what the role of the Czech community in Thredbo was. Did we have a good name and reputation in the Snowy Mountains?"-"The Czechs had a great influence on the beginning of skiing in Thredbo. In the seventies there were Czechs on the staff of the hotel, there were Czechs in the restaurant of the hotel and Tonda Šponar was one of the founders of skiing in Thredbo."-"This goes back to your friend Tony Šponaro, with whom you ran the mechanical lift in Sankt Anton."-"That was a follow-up. Since Tonda was the first resident manager here, a lot of Czechs who were in the Snowy Mountains came here for work. They liked it here, the life and the skiing. So there were a lot of Czechs employed here originally, they were well known and had a good reputation."

- "In 1956 you represented Australia at the Olympics in Cortina, Italy. Czechoslovakia was represented by Evžen Čermák, Jaroslav Bogdálek and Kurt Hennrich, who incidentally finished an amazing seventh in the downhill.- "Did you know some of these athletes and what was it like to represent Australia and not Czechoslovakia?"- "It was interesting in Cortina, I'll be a bit ahead of you, before Cortina there was a training camp in Bad Gastein and we happened to stay in the same hotel as the Czechs. There I was able to communicate freely with them, Dr. Mathé was there and Zdenek Parma was the manager, I knew him well. I knew them and somebody else, but I didn't know these young guys anymore because they came after my time. I came to some Czechs, I wanted to talk to them and they turned away from me. Somebody said to me, they're telling these guys they can't associate with you, that was interesting. I felt like an Australian, I was happy to go to the Olympics for Australia, it was a bit surreal. You thought, I've been here for five years, I've been away for five years and now I'm representing another country. I didn't have any problems about it. It was interesting, I was happy to be representing Australia. I'd never been to an international competition before. The Olympics was hard work, the Olympics is not all fun and games, you are under pressure. In Cortina especially, there was very little snow. It made everything more difficult than if the conditions were normal. You were also nervous, the impact of that was that in the giant slalom I fell in the first gate, it was a shame, but I went out and I thought, damn, I have to spin. It was too late, my skis slipped. There's the photo with my hand up."

"Karel, Saša and I went to Belgium, Karel got the job of treasurer, Saša was at home. I did what I could, I washed dishes and did all sorts of different jobs, I earned a little money. I didn't want to go home, I wanted to get out of Europe. The question was where to go next. And why Australia? We didn't think about skiing at that time, the goal was to get somewhere out where it would be reasonable. The decision was made one weekend, Canada was also taking refugees. Nekvapil used to subscribe to the London Times on weekends, there was a supplement on Sunday about the recruitment of migrants to Australia, where life was very well described, the weather, and so on, the south, the north, everything was described. They didn't have much choice because Canada and Australia were open, the other countries were very difficult to get into. We weren't there as migrants. Every country resisted foreign people, didn't want them. Only these two countries were open. We debated it and decided on Australia."

"The plan was that the pond would be frozen in January and we would cross the ice to Austria at the beginning of January 1949. A friend had a car and drove us as far as possible to the border. We had a terrible shock because the ponds we passed on the way were not frozen. We thought, 'Jesus Christ, if we have to go around that pond, they're bound to see us.' It was a long way to go around the arm of the pond, two hours, an hour and an hour and a half. Fortunately, when we got to Stankov Pond, the arm was frozen over, so we were relieved. It was like we were on a cross-country ski tour, we were just on a trip, and gee we are in Austria?! Luckily, although we passed the Border Guard building on the way, no one noticed us, so we went on and successfully crossed the pond. We were sort of reassured, because there was a herd of roe deer crossing the pond, quite slowly, they weren't scared, so we thought: 'No guards are going there.' So we crossed the pond, reached the forester’s house, and he put us up for the night."