Two years later, she was still a medical student at the Charles University in Prague when she competed for Czechoslovakia in the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia in the discus.

The 24-year-old became Czechoslovakia's only gold medalist at the 1956 Olympics[2] when she won with a throw of 53.69 m, beating Soviet pair Irina Beglyakova (52.54 m) and Nina Ponomaryova (52.02 m).

But somehow fate brought us together, and we found that although we were from opposite or far away corners of the world, and definitely from political systems that seemed to be completely incompatible, that when it came to basic human values and observations, we were extremely similar.

From that developed, besides curiosity and friendship, also a feeling of love.The romance was well received by the Western media and public, but not as popular with the Czechoslovak team minders.

Fikotová was surprisingly given a permit to marry a foreigner, possibly due to the positive involvement of Czechoslovak president Antonín Zápotocký, who met the couple a few days before the wedding.

[2] Their witnesses for the wedding were the legendary Czech couple and Olympic athletics gold medalists Emil Zátopek and Dana Zátopková.

[6] The couple appeared on 10 June 1958 episode the game show To Tell the Truth, in which each one was shown alongside two impostors, and a panel attempted to guess who the real one was.