Vítězslav Mácha

* 1948

  • "You don't feel it in that match, in that trance. To give an example - in 1977, at the World Cup, I wrestled with West German called Helbing. He got the bronze medal at the Munich Olympics. I led about 7:0. Then we fell out of the ring. When I got up and leaned on my hand, he jumped on my feet and broke that hand. This is, of course, a pain like a cow. There was a Hungarian doctor nearby, he threw it back. Of course, that it hurt for a while, there was, according to the rules, some time for which it is possible to interrupt the match. Then I picked up the hand, grabbed it by the chest, and decided to keep wrestling. I even threw Helbing over my head with one hand during the match and I won the match 12:5. With that hand, I wrestled another 5:5 with him. By the next morning, of course, the hand got swollen and it was no longer possible to fight. So, in that trance, when you're still warm, you can do it somehow, even if it hurts."

  • "I was a member of the party then, but almost all of us had to be there. It was possible not to be in the party, but it would be big problems. I'm basically an apolitical person, but I had that card, like most of the athletes. When I wanted to go abroad, it couldn't be otherwise." - "When did they come to you to ask you to join the Communist Party?" - "I don't remember that exactly, but probably sometime around the victory at the Olympics in 1972. But I don't know exactly, I never cared that much. The worst part was that I had to go to those meetings or trainings or whatever it was. You always had to sit there, about once a month. It was a pain in the neck."

  • "Don't think it's funny to start a match. It hurts a little there and yet it's a guy to a guy. So sometimes you feel it a little bit. It's something completely different than playing football or handball, where you're partially hidden in a team. You go to the corner there and you're alone against the guy. It is not funny many times. When I started in the national team, I always hid somewhere and sang fighting songs to myself. But that didn't help much. It was more for the courage. Later, when I found out what it was about, I also hid, I was walking here and there and played a movie in my head. I imagined my opponents, I usually knew the best ones, I knew what they were doing, so I imagined what he would do, what I would do, and so on. If anyone would watch me doing empty movements, they would think I was crazy. But it was the best preparation just before the match that could have been."

  • "A talent is probably about movement. That one can react. I'll put it another way: when I compared a lot of guys as a coach, they were able to learn some new movements faster, but they couldn't use them in practice, and they quickly forgot them again. It took me longer, for example, I was a little slower, but once I learned it, I could use it perfectly in any situation, mostly I could do it forever. It was my advantage. Another advantage of mine was that when I went to the European and World Championships, where the biggest stars were, I watched their matches, and when they did something special, I started to do and use it in my training. My coach Odehnal looked at it and immediately went to the books and found the movements, why the hand in this way and the foot in that way and fixated it to me. And that was probably the talent. And then not to give up."

  • "I remember one incident like that, I was already at school and we had a start on Monday morning. The master looked at me and said, 'Macha, why are you so broken in the face?' I tell him I was at the republic championship. He asked how I ended up. I said I won. He went to look in the newspaper where it was written and then said, 'Macha, get dressed and go home!' So, it was such an incident." - "And where did you go to school?" - "To Vítkovice, I studied to be a founder."

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Comparing the power is in our genes as we are guys. I wanted to be the best

Vítězslav Mácha in 1976
Vítězslav Mácha in 1976
zdroj: archive of the witness

Vítězslav Mácha was born on April 6, 1948 in Krmelín near Ostrava into the family of Jan and Anna Mácha, who worked as workers in the Vítkovice Ironworks. He has a brother Mojmír, who is 16 years younger. He has been talented in sports since his childhood. He devoted himself to Greco-Roman wrestling under the leadership of Kamil Odehnal, who coached him until the end of Vítězslav‘s sports career at the age of 32. At the age of 16, Vítězslav won the title of champion of the republic in Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle for the youth. He also won the Olympics in Munich, and four years later he won the silver medal in Montreal. He won the world title twice, in 1974 in Katowice and in 1977 in Gothenburg. After the end of his active racing career, he coached the national team. In 2007, he was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame of the Moravian-Silesian Region. He lives with his family in Krmelín, where he and his younger brother Mojmír breed racing carrier pigeons.