Frank Prihoda

Frank Prihoda was inspired to ski by his older sister, Alexandra Nekvapilová, who won several national championships in their native Czechoslovakia and represented that country in alpine skiing at the 1948 Winter Olympics. Prihoda skied in his home country as well, taking it up at the age of 13, but it was not until the siblings fled Czechoslovakia for Australia in 1950 that he began to compete seriously. In Australia, he worked in an artificial flower factory, the same type of business that his family had owned in their homeland, but also continued to train at a ski school founded by his sister in 1951. In 1956, after having received his citizenship a year earlier, he too got an opportunity to attend the Olympics, in this case representing Australia, where he placed 54th out of 95 entrants in the slalom and 80th in the giant slalom.

Prihoda moved to Thredbo in 1974 and began working in the store attached to a ski lodge run by his sister. He eventually became involved in the local community, running the Thredbo Ski Museum and serving as vice-president of the Thredbo Historical Society. He continued to ski until the age of 90. Following the death of Forbes Carlile in August 2016, he became Australia’s oldest living Olympian.