Czechoslovakia at the 1956 Summer Olympics

Czechoslovakia at the 1956 Summer Olympics
IOC code	TCH
NOC	Czechoslovak Olympic Committee
in Melbourne/Stockholm
Competitors	63 (51 men and 12 women) in 10 sports
Flag bearer	Zdeněk Růžička
Medals Ranked 18th	Gold 1 Silver 4 Bronze 1 Total 6
Summer Olympics appearances (overview)
1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992
Other related appearances
Bohemia (1900–1912)  Czech Republic (1994–)  Slovakia (1994–)

Czechoslovakia competed at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. 63 competitors, 51 men and 12 women, took part in 54 events in 10 sports.^[1]

Czech athlete Olga Fikotová won a gold medal in women's discus. She also started a famous love affair with American athlete Harold Vincent Connolly here.

The team was warned that their flight back to Czechoslovakia was in a danger of a terrorists' attack. All sportsmen had to undergo a long journey by a Soviet ship Gruzia from Melbourne to Vladivostok, Soviet Union and then by Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow and by plane to Prague, Czechoslovakia. The whole journey took 31 days. The part of the journey from Melbourne to Moscow, Czechoslovakian sportsmen had to share a ship and train with Soviet sportsmen also returning home via this route. The coexistence was not idyllic and Czechoslovakians described it later as very humiliating. The Olympic team spent Christmas Day in the Pacific and New Year's Eve in Siberia. The team experienced high temperatures during voyage across equator and later freezing weather with -50 °C in Siberia.

It is very probable that the reason for the warning was only fictional and a long journey home was only a political decision made by Czechoslovak and Soviet communists. It was never justified.^{[citation needed]}