Today on Oldest Olympians, we wanted to update a few Olympic mysteries that have been solved since we first posted them. The first is that of Uruguayan boxer Arquímedes Arrieta, for whom we found a record of an individual with that name who died in 1937. Connor Mah was able to uncover that Olympian was the person who died and that he was murdered on New Year’s Day, although further details were not available.
(Hong Jong-Oh, pictured in his obituary)
Second, Korean track athlete Hong Jong-Oh, born July 7, 1925, was on our list of Olympians for whom we last had evidence of being alive in 2012, and we ultimately removed him from our tables earlier this year because we could not find any subsequent updates. We have now learned that he died September 13, 2011 and thus was never among the Oldest Olympians, or even alive when we believed him to be.
(Beverly Faulds)
In happier news, we want to thank the son of field hockey player Beverly Faulds, born May 16, 1933, for contacting us to confirm that his father is still alive as what we believe to be the oldest living Olympian to have represented Zimbabwe. We also want to thank Ralf Regnitter for responding to our last post to let us know that Swiss rower Ernst Hürlimann is also still alive.
Finally, as an update to someone that was never an Olympic mystery, earlier this year we highlighted Chilean track athlete Eduardo Fontecilla, born November 9, 1929, as among the oldest Olympians. We have since learned, however, that he died June 7, 2019, and thus did not reach the age of 90.