Vítězslav Mácha

"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."