WJan Čep (1902–1974) was a Czech writer and translator.
WVladimír Černík was a Czechoslovakian tennis player. He was a mainstay of his country's Davis Cup team in the years immediately following World War II, helping them reach the Inter-Zonal final in successive years in 1947 and 1948, though they fell to Australia on both occasions. His biggest individual tournament victories in singles were his two Swiss International Championships in 1946 and 1950.
WIvan Diviš was a significant Czech poet and essayist of the second half of the 20th century.
WJaroslav Drobný was a World No. 1 amateur tennis and ice hockey champion. He left Czechoslovakia in 1949 and travelled as an Egyptian citizen before becoming a citizen of the United Kingdom in 1959, where he died in 2001. In 1954, he became the first and, to date, only player with African citizenship to win the Wimbledon Championships.
WMartina Hingis is a Swiss former professional tennis player. She is the first Swiss player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam and attain a No. 1 ranking. She spent a total of 209 weeks as the singles world No. 1 and 90 weeks as doubles world No. 1, holding both No. 1 rankings simultaneously for 29 weeks. She won 5 Grand Slam singles titles, 13 Grand Slam women's doubles titles, winning a calendar-year women's doubles Grand Slam in 1998, and 7 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 25 major titles. In addition, she won the season-ending WTA Finals two times in singles and three times in doubles, an Olympic silver medal, and a record 17 Tier I singles titles.
WVlastimil Hort is a Czechoslovak-born German chess Grandmaster. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship, but never qualified for a competition for the actual title.
WRudolph Krejci was a Czechoslovak-American philosopher and professor, who was the founder of the Philosophy and Humanities Programs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and founder and first dean of the university's College of Arts and Sciences in 1975. In 1997, after 37 years at the university, Krejci became Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Humanities.
WRafael Jeroným Kubelík, KBE was a Czech-born Swiss conductor and composer.
WIvan Lendl is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 for 270 weeks and won 94 singles titles. He won eight Grand Slam titles and was runner-up a joint record 11 times, making him the first male player to appear in 19 Grand Slam finals. He also appeared in a record eight consecutive US Open finals, and won seven year-end championships. Lendl pioneered a new style of tennis; his game was built around his forehand, hit hard with heavy topspin, and his success is cited as a primary influence in popularizing the currently common playing style of aggressive baseline power tennis. After retirement, he became a tennis coach for multiple players. In particular, he helped Andy Murray win three major titles and reach the No. 1 ranking.
WMartina Navratilova is a Czech-American former professional tennis player and coach. Widely considered among the greatest female tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 major women's doubles titles, and 10 major mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 59 major titles, marking the Open Era record for the most Grand Slam titles won by a single player. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including for nine consecutive years from 1982 through 1990, and won the women's singles title at Wimbledon a record nine times, including a run of six consecutive titles.
WPetr Nedvěd is a Czech-born Canadian former professional ice hockey player who spent 15 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL).
WIvan Passer was a Czech film director and screenwriter, best known for his involvement in the Czechoslovak New Wave and for directing American films such as Born to Win (1971), Cutter's Way (1981) and Stalin (1992).
WEduard Maximilian Prchal was a Czech pilot and sole survivor of a 1943 plane crash that killed the Polish Prime Minister.
WAugustin Přeučil was a Czechoslovakian military pilot, who during World War II worked as an intelligence agent for Nazi Germany. In 1941, whilst serving with the British Royal Air Force, he stole a fighter aircraft from England, and flew it to Occupied Europe where he surrendered it to the German authorities. He later worked in Occupied Central Europe with the Gestapo. Shortly after the war he was executed in Prague by the Czechoslovakian authorities for High Treason.
WAdolf Scherer is a Slovak footballer who played as a striker. He is of Carpathian German descent. He played 36 games and scored 22 goals for the Czechoslovakia national team. Scherer represented Czechoslovakia at the 1960 European Nations' Cup and 1958 FIFA World Cup, where he did not play any match. In the 1962 FIFA World Cup Scherer scored three goals, Czechoslovakia finished second.
WJosef Škvorecký was a Czech-Canadian writer and publisher. He spent half of his life in Canada, publishing and supporting banned Czech literature during the communist era. Škvorecký was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1980. He and his wife were long-time supporters of Czech dissident writers before the fall of communism in that country. Škvorecký's fiction deals with several themes: the horrors of totalitarianism and repression, the expatriate experience, and the miracle of jazz.
W"Michael" Miroslav Sláma was an ice hockey player for the Czechoslovak national team. He won a silver medal at the 1948 Winter Olympics and a gold medal at the 1947 Ice Hockey World Championships. In total he played 26 games and scored 9 goals for the Czechoslovakia national ice hockey team.
WAnton Šťastný is a Slovak former professional ice hockey left winger who played nine seasons with the Quebec Nordiques of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1980 until 1989. He was the first player born and trained in Slovakia to be drafted by an NHL team. He is the brother of Vladimír, Bohumil, Eva, Marián, and Peter Šťastný, and the uncle of Yan Stastny and Paul Stastny, all of whom have been involved in ice hockey at a professional level. Anton's son, Thomas Šťastný, played in Switzerland, last for Martigny in 2015.
WMarián Šťastný is a Slovak former professional ice hockey right winger who played for five seasons in the National Hockey League from 1981 through 1986 for the Quebec Nordiques and Toronto Maple Leafs. Prior to moving to the NHL Šťastný had played in Czechoslovakia for Slovan ChZJD Bratislava with his brothers, Peter and Anton. They defected in 1980, joining the Nordiques, though Marián waited until 1981 to join them.
WPeter Šťastný, also known colloquially as "Peter the Great" and "Stosh", is a Slovak-Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1980 to 1995. Šťastný is the second-highest scorer of the 1980s, after Wayne Gretzky. During his time with the Quebec Nordiques, Šťastný became a Canadian citizen. From 2004 to 2014, he served as a Member of the European Parliament for Slovakia. During his NHL career, he played with the Quebec Nordiques, New Jersey Devils, and St. Louis Blues.
WJan T. Vilček is a biomedical scientist, educator, inventor and philanthropist. He is a professor in the department of microbiology at the New York University School of Medicine, and chairman and CEO of The Vilcek Foundation. Vilček, a native of Bratislava, Slovakia, received his M.D. degree from Comenius University Medical School, Bratislava in 1957; and his Ph.D. in Virology from the Institute of Virology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1962. In 1964, Vilček, with his wife Marica, defected from Communist Czechoslovakia during a three-day visit to Vienna. In 1965, the Vilčeks immigrated to the United States, and have since lived in New York City. Vilček devoted his scientific career to studies of soluble mediators that regulate the immune system (cytokines), including interferon and tumor necrosis factor (TNF).
WAlena "Ája" Vrzáňová was a Czech figure skater who represented Czechoslovakia in competition. Vrzáňová is the 1949 & 1950 World champion and 1950 European champion.