Background
Frištenský was born as one of six children of Kateřina and Alois Frištenský in the village of Kamhajek, today a part of Křečhoř near Kolín.
Frištenský was born as one of six children of Kateřina and Alois Frištenský in the village of Kamhajek, today a part of Křečhoř near Kolín.
He is considered the strongest Czechoslovakian and a legendary symbol of strength for many Czechs. When he was seven years old he already rode the horses and plowed the fields. During a dispute in the workshop, one of his fellow apprentices passed him an incandescent horseshoe, which caused him serious burns of his hand.
After three months of home remedies his father decided to let him learn to be a butcher.
After training, he left for Brno, where he worked in the butchery of Moritz Soffer. While in Brno, he started to attend local Sokol and Hellas sports clubs.
In 1900, The Hellas athletic club sent him to Vyškov to fight with the best wrestlers from Central Moravia. After returning home he found out that he had lost his job as a butcher"s apprentice and decided to start a career as a professional wrestler.
In the following years (before World War I), he travelled and competed across the world, including Southern and Northern America (he fought with Frank Gotch, George Lurich and Gus Schoenlein ("Americus"), among others).
He lost some fights, but not too many. He also appeared in the title role of the film Pražský kat (The Hangman of Prague). The town was a part of the Sudetenland and their farm was confiscated by Germans after the Munich Agreement in 1938.
At the end of the war, their farm was ransacked when the soldiers of the Red Army resided there.
lieutenant was later collectivized by the Communist authorities. In 1947, he became a widower.
Frištenský was very impoverished in his later years and had to sell his trophies to survive. In 1956, he received the title Merited Master of Sports.
He died in April 1957 in Litovel, where he is buried.