Václav Vohralík

Václav Vohralík was born in Brno in 1892 and competed in track and field athletics in Budapest as a middle-distance runner. Between 1914 and 1919 Vohralík won six national titles, including winning in the 1,500 and 5,000 metres. After World War I the Belgian city of Antwerpen was selected to host the 1920 Olympics, with their organising committee baring countries who had lost the war from competing. Despite being a Hungarian athlete, Vohralík announced that he would represent Czechoslovakia at the Olympics, with some newspapers calling him a traitor. He ran in the 1,500 metres in Antwerpen where he narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth. For more than a century it was believed that Vohralík was the nation’s flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony of the Antwerpen Games, but following research by the Czech Olympic Committee in 2021, it was discovered that the tennis player Ladislav Žemla had this honour.

After the Olympics Vohralík won seven Czechoslovak championships, with one each in the 800 and 5,000 metres, and five titles in the 1,500 metres. In 1925 he also set a national record in the 5,000 metres when he ran 15:42.4. The following year he became the coach of the SK Zidenice Brno football team. He later worked in Romania as an athletics coach before working in an arms factory in India during World War II. Following the war he ran a sports store in Brno and later emigrated to Australia, where he died in 1985 at the age of 93.

Personal Best: 1500 – 4:01.6 (1921).