Frantisek MAXA

František Maxa did not take up sport shooting until he began his military service after World War II, in 1946, but by the 1950s he was setting national records in Czechoslovakia. This led to his first appearance at the Olympic Games in 1952, where he was 15th among 48 competitors in the free pistol, 50 metres event. He improved somewhat at the 1956 edition, where he came in 12th. His best results, however, came at the 1958 ISSF World Shooting Championships, where he won a gold medal with the 25 metre center file pistol team (alongside Vladimír Kudrna and the non-Olympians Karel Mucha and Václav Trojan) and bronze in the team 50 metre free pistol (with Kudrna, Mucha, Jiří Hrneček, and Josef Šváb). By career he was an instructor in the faculty of physical education at Charles University and also worked as a coach and official before and after his retirement from active competition in 1970. Nonetheless, he continued shooting into his old age, even after turning 95.