Anton Heida

Anton Heida, also known as Antonin Hejda, was born on 24 December 1878 in Zizkov and became an American gymnast who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. There he won five gold medals, taking the vault, horizontal bar, pommel horse, team competition and all-around titles, which made him the most successful athlete at those Games. He belonged to the American Sokol Organization, the gymnastic society of Czech emigrants, and is reported to have lived in Philadelphia and Chicago and later in Prague during the 1920s. He worked as a physical education teacher and fought with the Czechoslovak Legions in Russia during the First World War. The year and place of his death are not known.