Today on Oldest Olympians we wanted to bring you a quick update on some trivia that we have covered in the past. Some time ago, we mentioned that, to the best of our knowledge, the first Olympian to die was Selwin Calverly. Calverley also competed in sailing at the 1900 Paris Games and took second place in the 20+ Ton class. He died suddenly at the age of 45, on December 30, 1900, about four months after taking part the Olympics.
(Selwin Calverley)
At the time, however, we acknowledged that this information was somewhat tenuous due to all of the missing data on early Olympic competitors. In fact, we explicitly mentioned J. Brassard, who represented France in masters foil and épée fencing at the 1900 Paris Games and was deceased by the end of the year, although we did not have an exact date of death.
Thanks to research from Taavi Kalju, however, we have learned that J. Brassard was actually Eugène Edmond Brassart, born March 5, 1870 in Paris. He was killed alongside three others in the collapse of the Passerelle des Invalides, a temporary bridge built for the Exposition Universelle de 1900, on August 18, 1900 (although his body was not found until the following day). Taking place just over a month after his final event, this new information leads us to believe that he has the unfortunate distinction of being the first modern Olympian to die.
In addition to this, we have two more smaller updates. First, Connor Mah was able to determine that British gymnast Doris Woods, who we covered recently, was born August 1, 1902 in Plaistow, Essex and died September 13, 1956 in Caterham, Surrey. Secondly, we wanted to thank Wes Shutt for confirming that British biathlete Norman Shutt, born November 9, 1929, who represented his country at the 1960 Squaw Valley Games, is still alive at the age of 91. As our last update on him had been in 2009, we are very happy to add him back to our tables!
Over the last couple weeks I’ve discussed various aspects of “Multi-Olympians” – Olympians who competed in both the Summer and Winter Olympics, Olympians who competed in two or more sports, and Olympians who competed for two more nations. To finish this travelogue, today we’ll have a short look at Multi-Olympians who simply competed at more than one Olympics.
From 1896 to 2018 we have 135,356 “Olympians” in our database. Our definition of an “Olympian” is somebody who is known to have actually competed at the Olympics, and we’re fairly strict about that. There are a few missing Olympians from the early Games that we have not identified, but the current count includes 114,751 Summer Olympians, 20,463 Winter Olympians, and the 142 Olympians who competed at both Games.
Of these Olympians, what are the odds of competing in more than one Olympics? With the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Games, this has become of some interest as the media has been interested in how many Olympians only compete at one Olympics and never get a second chance.
And the answer is – 72.2% of Olympians have competed in only one Olympic Games from 1896 to 2018. Thus, slightly more ¼ of all Olympians, or more precisely, 27.8% or 37,638 Olympians, have competed in more than one Olympics.
Of these the breakdown for how often they have competed is as follows:
Games
###
%%%
10 Games
1
0.0%
9 Games
2
0.0%
8 Games
10
0.0%
7 Games
31
0.0%
6 Games
145
0.1%
5 Games
554
0.4%
4 Games
2,236
1.7%
3 Games
8,245
6.1%
2 Games
26,414
19.5%
1 Games
97,718
72.2%
For the record the athlete who competed in 10 Olympics is Ian Millar, a Canadian equestrian rider, who appeared at the Olympics from 1972-2012, missing only in 1980 because of the US-led boycott of the 1980 Moskva Olympics. The 2 athletes competing in 9 Olympics were Austrian sailor Hubert Raudauschl, who was at every Olympics from 1964 to 1996; and the Latvian/Soviet shooter Afanasijs Kuzmins, who competed in 1976, 1980, and 1988 for the Soviet Union, and from 1992-2012 for Latvia.
The record among women is held jointly by three Olympians who competed at 8 Olympics – Josefa Idem-Guerrini, a canoeist who competed for both Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany (West) from 1984-2012; Lesley Thompson-Willie of Canada, a rower who competed from 1984-2016, missing 2004; and Nino Salukvadze, a sport shooter who competed for the Soviet Union, the Unified Team, and Georgia from 1988-2016.
At the Winter Olympics, Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai has uniquely competed at 8 Winter Olympics from 1992 through 2018, and he’s still going. Among women, Claudia Pechstein, a German speed skater, competed at 7 Winter Olympics, the record for women at the Winter Games, from 1992 to 2018, missing the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics in a doping controversy.
For those who competed at both versions of the Olympics, 5 women competed at 6 different Olympiads: Kateřina Neumannová – CZE/TCH; CCS/CYC; 1992-2006; Evgeniya Radanova – BUL; CYC/STK; 1994-2010; Clara Hughes – CAN; CYC/SSK; 1996-2012; Hayley Wickenheiser – CAN; ICH/SOF; 1998-2014; and Jaqueline Mourão – BRA; BIA/CCS/CYC; 2004-2018. Of course, the ubiquitous Seiko Hashimoto, Japanese cyclist speed skater, competed at 7 Olympics from 1984-1996, although she competed in both sets of Games in 1988 and 1992.
Today’s blog post concerns a boxer who represented Great Britain in the welterweight division at the 1924 Paris Games: J. Basham. Officially he is known as Joseph J. “Johnny” Basham but, as will be seen, we cannot be entirely certain of this. What we do know is that he was about 21 years old when he attended the Olympics and a member of the Columbia Amateur Boxing Club.
The first obstacle we encounter is that there was a much more well-known professional boxer from Wales with the name Johnny Basham who also competed as a welterweight. His professional career began in 1909, which precludes him from being the Olympian, but the two are often confused in both contemporary and more recent accounts. In fact, while we usually like to illustrate our blog posts, and a good picture claimed to be of the professional Basham is widely available, we have chosen not to post it here, to avoid adding further confusion. Thus, at a basic level, any search for a Johnny Basham or a boxing J. Basham is complicated by the existence of this other boxer. In the few newspaper clippings we have been able to locate referring to the Olympian, as is the case for many early athletes, only his first initial, “J.” is given, and never his given name, adding another layer of uncertainty to the search.
To add to the difficulties, it appears that there may have been two other boxing Bashams that were active around this time, one associated with the London Fire Brigade in the late 1920s, and one associated with the London & Northeast Railway and Goodmans Yard in the early 1920s. Since the Olympic Basham did not have a significant amateur career, it is difficult to connect any details of his life to the other Bashams, particularly as newspapers of the time do not seem to have made much effort to distinguish the professional from the amateurs, let alone amongst the amateurs.
One possible candidate (assuming the age of 21 in 1924 is correct) for the amateur boxer is John Basham, born March 19, 1903 in Manchester, who worked on the railways and was living in London around the time of the Paris Olympics. There was also a James George Basham, born May 12, 1903, who is noted in 1939 to be a fireman with the London Fire Brigade, but in both cases there are no obvious links to either man being the Olympic boxer.
A newspaper article from 1928 noted that a former British welterweight champion boxer and fireman named Johnny Basham was injured in a training accident and hospitalized at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. There is, however, no evidence that the professional was ever a fireman; in fact, a later article noted a communication from the professional, back at home in Wales, that there was “no truth whatever[sic]” in the previous report. Consequently, there is no evidence of the amateur Johnny Basham ever winning any titles or championships. A 1924 article states J. Basham of Columbia ABC to be the “winner of military, polytechnical and V Division 10st 7lb competitions”, though we have not been able to find any further information about this.
Thus, we could have at least three boxing J. Bashams: Johnny (the professional), John (the railway worker), and James (the fireman). The railway worker and the fireman may be the same individual and, given how common the surname Basham is, it is possible that the Olympian, perhaps named Joseph, is someone entirely different than anyone we have mentioned here. While this can get confusing, we hope that we can clear up at least one misconception with this post: the Olympic boxer is not the same as the Welsh professional , but the jury still remains out on who the Olympic boxer was.
As we often do here, we want to thank Connor Mah and Rob Gilmore for contributing to this post and uncovering much of the information!
Over the last few days I have posted on athletes competing in both the Summer and Winter Olympics, and those who competed in 2 different sports. What about athletes who have competed for 2 different nations at the Olympics? Surely that has happened a few times.
Well, it has, in fact we have 1,622 such Olympians in our database – that’s out of about 135,450 Olympians. It is probably more correct to say they represented 2 or more GPEs, or geo-political entities, at the Olympics, rather than nations. This is because technically Olympians represent National Olympic Committees, or NOCs, rather than nations, but also there are several exceptions to nations and NOCs, but for simplicity, we will stick to “nations”.
As examples of non-national GPEs, Russia competed at PyeongChang in 2018 as OAR = Olympic Athletes from Russia, and will compete at Tokyo as ROC = Russian Olympic Committee. There have been Refugee Olympic Teams, unfortunately labelled as ROT originally, but now to be EOR = Équipe Olympique Réfugée. Further, there have been several cases where teams were labelled as IOA = Independent Olympic Athletes or IOP = Independent Olympic Participants. Finally, some NOCs do not represent independent nations, such as Puerto Rico and American Samoa, territories of the United States; or the British Virgin Islands, a British Overseas Territory; Hong Kong, China, now a part of China; and formerly the Netherlands Antilles, which was a part of the Netherlands.
Even listing all the nations can cause some confusion, because many of these 1,622 cases have been nations that have been related politically. The Soviet Union’s republics separated into many different nations, as did the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and Germany was formerly the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and the German Democratic Republic (East). So we will make a distinction between 1) related nations, and 2) distinctly different nations (DDN).
Of the 1,622 cases in our database, only 315 of them involved DDN. There are actually 5 examples of athletes representing 4 nations at the Olympics, although none of these are fully DDN, and they all involve former Soviet or Yugoslav athletes. They are as follows:
Name
Gdr
Nations
Sport
Years
Irina Lashko
F
AUS/EUN/RUS/URS
DIV
1988-2004
Jasna Šekarić
F
IOA/SCG/SRB/YUG
SHO
1988-2012
Makharbek Khadartsev
M
EUN/RUS/URS/UZB
WRE
1988-2000
Ilija Lupulesku
M
IOA/SCG/USA/YUG
TTN
1988-2004
Michał Śliwiński
M
EUN/POL/UKR/URS
CAN
1988-2004
There have been 92 athletes represent 3 nations at the Olympics, with almost all of them involving athletes from former Soviet or Yugoslav republics. Only 1 athlete can be considered to have represented 3 DDN – Yamilé Aldama, originally a Cuban triple jumper who competed in 5 Olympics from 1996-2012. She competed for Cuba in 1996 and 2000, the Sudan in 2004 and 2008, and Great Britain in 2012.
What are the most frequent combinations of multiple nations represented? There have been 354 different combinations, but looking at all nations, related and distinctly different, here is the list of the most common:
As you can see, these are all politically related nations. Now if we limit the list to DDN, this looks far different:
Nations
###
Cuba/Spain
9
Belgium/Netherlands
6
Great Britain/Ireland
5
Hungary/Romania
5
Austria/Yugoslavia
4
Unified Team/Germany
4
Hungary/United States
4
Canada/Czechoslovakia
3
Cameroon/France
3
France/Poland
3
Germany/Romania
3
Germany/Ukraine
3
Turkey/Ukraine
3
But looking at this another way, here are the most common nations among the DDN:
Nation
###
United States
36
Australia
29
France
29
Canada
26
Germany
24
Hungary
22
Spain
21
Great Britain
20
Italy
20
Austria
17
Russia
15
Now what about winning Olympic medals for 2 nations or 2 DDN? Has that happened? Of course, it has. There are 320 cases of Olympic athletes winning medals for 2 different nations, but limiting this to DDN, this narrows it down to only 25 examples. There have also been 10 cases in which an athlete won Olympic medals for 3 different nations, although with the exception of Irina Lashko, 8 of these were for the Soviet Union, Unified Team, and Russia, and 1 case involved Yugoslavia and its various different names. Here is that list:
Name
Gender
Sport
Nations
Marina Dobrancheva-Logvinenko
F
SHO
URS/EUN/RUS
Irina Lashko
F
DIV
EUN/RUS/AUS
Jasna Šekarić
F
SHO
YUG/IOA/SCG
Anfisa Reztsova
F
BIA/CCS
URS/EUN/RUS
Aleksandr Karelin
M
WRE
URS/EUN/RUS
Makharbek Khadartsev
M
WRE
URS/EUN/RUS
Pavel Kolobkov
M
FEN
URS/EUN/RUS
Andrey Lavrov
M
HAN
URS/EUN/RUS
Sergey Chepikov
M
BIA
URS/EUN/RUS
Igor Kravchuk
M
ICH
URS/EUN/RUS
Again, Anfisa Reztsova is the queen of cross-overs, having won medals in 2 different sports for 3 different nations.
Finally, how many Olympians have won gold medals for 2 different nations? This has been done 67 times, but only 3 times by athletes representing DDN:
Name
Gender
Sport
NOC-Year1
NOC-Year2
Dan Carroll
M
RUG
ANZ/1908
USA/1920
Armen Nazaryan
M
WRE
ARM/1996
BUL/2000
Viktor An (Hyeon-Su Ahn)
M
STK
KOR/2006
RUS/2014
And from the previous list, 3 Olympians actually have won gold medals for 3 different nations, but all were for the Soviet Union/Unified Team/Russia combination – Anfisa Reztsova (BIA/CCS), Aleksandr Karelin (WRE), and Andrey Lavrov (HAN).
We have another quick post today on Oldest Olympians. Until recently, we listed Felix Würth, born August 11, 1923, as the oldest living Austrian Olympian. This was based on a report from late 2012 that listed him as alive and living in Ontario, Canada, but we had not seen an update since. Recently, however, we removed him from our tables on credible, albeit yet unproven, evidence that he may have died, and we wanted to dedicate a little space to explaining that decision.
First, a little background, as Würth was no marginal athlete. His domestic career in Austria began after World War II and, from 1947 through 1952, he won a total of 21 national titles: four in the 4×100 relay, four in the 4×400 relay, five in the long jump, six in the triple jump, and two in the decathlon. He competed in both the long and triple jump at the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics, and was eliminated in the first round of all events except the long jump in 1948, where he placed eighth. He also represented Austria at the 1950 European Championships, finishing 13th in the triple jump and being eliminated in the qualifications for the long jump.
(Lotte Haidegger)
Würth married Lotte Haidegger, herself an accomplished track and field Olympian. She won Austrian titles in the shot put, discus throw (twice), and pentathlon, and was eighth in the discus at the 1950 European Championships. In both 1948 and 1952 she placed fifth in the Olympic discus tournament, and she was also entered in the shot put in 1952, although she did not start. After retiring from active competition, the couple eventually moved to Canada, and Haidegger was listed as deceased in the 2012 update on Würth.
This was the basis of our listing Würth as alive, although we also noted that a “Felix Wuerth” was listed as living in Guelph, Ontario at the same address as the retirement home that published the update. Public records, of course, may be slow to update, and recently an anonymous user on Wikipedia claimed that Würth died February 25, 2014. This user also noted that Haidegger died February 14, 2004 in Puslinch Township, Ontario. None of this information conflicts with what we know for certain but, unfortunately, even with such specific data we were unable to locate corresponding proof of these claims. We do, however, suspect that it is accurate, hence our removal of Würth from our lists. Until we uncover more evidence, however, this will remain a small Olympic mystery.
(Franz Zigon, pictured at the age of 94, at Nachrichten)
All of this means that the oldest known Austrian Olympian is now Franz Zigon, born March 9, 1924, who recently turned 97. Zigon represented his country in the water polo tournament at the 1952 Helsinki Games, where Austria was eliminated after the preliminary round. Unlike with Würth, we have much more documentation that Zigon is alive (and active in swimming!).
A few days ago I posted about athletes who competed at both the Summer and Winter Olympics – very rare birds. But what about those athletes who have competed in 2 different sports at the Olympics, although not necessarily at the Summer and Winter Olympics? How often has that occurred.
Here we must be careful in discussing sports and disciplines. The IOC recognizes both sports and disciplines, with disciplines being considered a sub-group within a sport. The best examples are swimming, diving, water polo, and artistic swimming (formerly synchronized swimming), which the IOC considers disciplines within the sport of aquatics; and skiing, with separate disciplines labelled cross-country skiing, Alpine skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and snowboarding. There are several other sports that also have separate disciplines under their purview.
We basically consider disciplines as separate sports in the cases above and a few other cases, such as volleyball and beach volleyball. So, when athletes compete in two or more “sports” at the Olympics, it becomes important to classify them either as 1) related sports, or 2) distinctly different sports (DDS). DDS are not necessarily those that the IOC labels as separate sports. We consider fencing and modern pentathlon, swimming and triathlon, or biathlon and cross-country skiing to be related sports, among others, since the action of one is included in the other sport.
Now, given that primer, there have been 1,004 Olympians compete in 2 different sports at the Olympics, by our definitions. Of these 360 competed in DDS. Of the 1,004, 77 athletes have actually competed in 3 different sports at the Olympics, and 6 athletes appeared in 4 different sports.
Of the 6 athletes competing in 4 different sports, only 3 could be considered to have competed in DDS, and all of those were in 1896. Carl Schuhmann (GER) competed in athletics, gymnastics, weightlifting, and wrestling, as did Launceston Elliott (GBR); while Viggo Jensen (DEN) appeared in athletics, gymnastics, shooting, and weightlifting.
Of the 77 athletes competing in 3 different sports, only 16 athletes can be considered to have appeared in DDS. These were all men and the last time it happened was in 1928, when Philippe Van Volcksom competed in ice hockey, rowing, and speed skating, although I guess one could argue that speed skating and ice hockey have some features in common.
What are the sports that most commonly doubled up? There have been 186 different combinations of multi-sport participation at the Olympics. Looking at all sports, including related sports, here are the most common:
No surprise there with swimming and water polo leading the way, but if you look at that list, we would only classify ATH/BOB, ATH/GYM, and ATH/TOW as DDS. Here is what the list looks like, if we limit ourselves to the DDS only:
Sports
###
Athletics/Bobsledding
49
Athletics/Gymnastics
25
Athletics/Tug-of-War
25
Cycling/Speedskating
17
Athletics/Weightlifting
9
Cross-Country Skiing/Cycling
8
Diving/Gymnastics
8
Tug-of-War/Wrestling
7
Athletics/Basketball
6
Fencing/Shooting
6
Rowing/Sailing
6
Athletics/Cross-Country Skiing
5
Athletics/Hockey
5
Tug-of-War/Weightlifting
5
Have any of these athletes actually won medals in 2 or more different sports? Yes, of course they have. It has happened 86 times at the Olympics, with 33 of those occurring in DDS.
Unique among these athletes is Franz Kugler, who won medals in 3 different sports. He is often listed as Frank Kungler in earlier sources, including ours, although we have now discovered his full, correct name and vital dates. Kugler was a German when he competed at the Olympics in 1904, although he is listed by the IOC as from the USA because he represented the St. Louis Southwest Turnverein. He is the only Olympian to win medals in 3 Olympic sports. He won a silver medal in heavyweight wrestling, 2 bronze medals in weightlifting, and a bronze medal in tug-of-war in 1904. Kugler became a US citizen in 1913 and died in St. Louis in 1952.
What about winning gold medals in 2 different sports? Yeah, that’s happened, too, actually 15 times with 4 athletes doing it in DDS. There were 2 women, Anfisa Reztsova (EUN/RUS/URS) who not only did it in biathlon and cross-country skiing, but while representing 2 different NOCs; and Esther Ledecka (SVK) who famously did it in 2018 in Alpine skiing and snowboarding, but both of those were in related sports.
The 4 athletes to win gold medals in DDS were as follows:
Two posts ago, when we discussed the French gymnast known only as “F. Vailee”, we noted that there were several other competitors from the 1948 London Olympics for whom we lacked even a full name. This was a more common phenomenon in the prewar era, when records were not kept as well and participants could take part having had limited success even in their home countries. By 1948, however, the Games had been firmly established as one of the pinnacles of international sporting competition.
It is true that newer nations, or at least those that had not participated previously, were beginning to take part, but all five of the individuals we are covering today were from countries that had at least one previous appearance at the Games. Thus, while we may not know a lot about the starting competitors from some non-European and non-American countries, we at least have a full name for almost all of them.
The first exception is that of G. M. Jagi, who represented Afghanistan in the field hockey tournament in 1948. Afghanistan had sent two track and field athletes, as well as a hockey team, to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and returned to the Games after the war with both a hockey and a football squad. While their footballers were eliminated in the qualifying round, the field hockey team fared slightly better, winning, losing, and tying one game to place joint-seventh among 13 teams overall. Despite knowing very little about the delegation in general, Jagi remains the only starting player from either team for whom we lack even a full name.
(The 1945 national water polo team of Chile, seated, pictured at Water Polo Legends)
The other non-European is A. Hurtado Vargas, who was a member of the Chilean water polo team that was eliminated in the group stage in 1948. Connor Mah has suggested that this individual may be César Augusto Hurtado Vargas, who died in 2007, but we have been unable to confirm this for certain.
The other three are all French sport shooters, which may be due to the lack of widespread media coverage given to the sport. For one, R. Gauthier-Lafond, who placed 20th in the small-bore rifle, prone, 50 metres event, we have a small hint that he may be French-Tunisian Georges Henry Gauthier-Lafond, who was active in the sport in the 1930s. He was born on October 16, 1914 and lived in Zriba, where his son Guy was born, and died September 30, 1992 in Auch. We have not been able to link him conclusively, however, to the Olympian. For the other two, R. Bouillet who finished 32nd in the rapid-fire pistol, 25 metres, and R. Stéphan, who was 48th in the free pistol, 50 metres, their names are common enough that we have encountered difficulty in locating any clues.
That is what we have for today – given the subject matter, we did not have much to say on the actual competitors, but we hope that there is still some interest in the topic nonetheless. As always, we hope to see you in the future for another blog post!
Today on Oldest Olympians we have an exciting update to a story that we covered recently on this blog. Two posts ago, we shared what little we knew of the tale of the Mexican bobsleigh team at the 1928 St. Moritz Olympics. At the conclusion, we noted that the full identities of three of the five competitors remained a mystery.
(Porfirio Díaz)
Shortly thereafter, Carlos Hernandez forwarded us some fascinating information: the entire team was composed of the close circle of Mexican president Porfirio Díaz, who had been ousted from power and sent to exile in Paris in 1911, where he died a few years later. G. and J. Díaz, therefore, were close relatives of this famous politician! Based on this evidence, and with a little help from Hilary Evans and Connor Mah on the finer details, we were able to identify these men as Porfirio’s grandsons: Genaro Díaz Raigosa and José de la Cruz Porfirio Genaro Díaz Raigosa. Both were born in Mexico City; Genaro on April 19, 1904 and José on April 29, 1907. Genaro eventually returned to Mexico and died there on December 5, 1963. José died sometime in 1988, but we have been unable to ascertain further details.
(Manuel Escandón)
As for the final competitor, Juan de Landa, we were told that his full surname included either y Escandón (from Carlos Hernandez) or Osio (from Fernando Arrechea). While we have been unable to find an exact match for either, we suspect that he may actually have been José Manuel “Pepe” de Landa y Osio, born May 28, 1899 in Tlalpan and died March 6, 1961 in Mexico City, who was the son of Guillermo de Landa y Escandón. We have, however, been unable to confirm this. This would, however, make him related to the Escandón brothers, Manuel, Pablo, and Eustaquio, who won a bronze medal for Mexico in the polo competition at the 1900 Paris Olympics.
There is certainly a much larger story to tell here, but for now this is all that we have. In terms of updates, we also wanted to thank Gérard Lefebvre, who confirmed that two-time French water polo Olympian Maurice Lefèbvre was born on October 30, 1913 in Tourcoing and died there on May 24, 1983. We will be bringing you something new shortly so, as always, we hope that you will join us!
Seiko Hashimoto was recently named as the new President of the Organizing Committee for the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. Ms. Hashimoto competed in the Olympics in both cycling and speed skating, as I noted in some tweets on the day she was announced as President. I’ve had several people ask me about athletes competing in both the Summer and Winter Olympics and how rare that is, which has prompted me to prepare this blog on “Both Season Olympians (BSOs)”. And as you will see, Ms Hashimoto’s name will figure prominently in the following.
It’s very rare to be an Olympic athlete. Since 1896 there have been about 135,400 Olympic athletes to compete in the Summer and Winter Olympics. By looking at historical populations and birth rates (see OurWorldInData.org), one can estimate that since 1870 through 2000, the period during which most of these athletes had to have been born, there have been about 12,600,000,000 births in the world, or between 12 and 13 billion. That means the chance of any person born in this period becoming an Olympic athlete is about 0.001% – 1/1000th of 1 percent.
How many of these 135,400 Olympians have competed at both the Summer and Winter Olympics, as did Ms. Hashimoto? There have been exactly 142 Olympians to compete at both Olympic Games through 2018, or about 0.1% of all Olympians, meaning the chance of any person born between 1870-2000 has had a 0.000001% chance of competing at both Olympic Games.
Who are these 142 extraordinary Olympians? They have come from 41 different nations, with the following nations having the most BSOs.
Belgium
12
Canada
12
Hungary
12
Austria
10
United States
10
Norway
8
Finland
6
Great Britain
6
Netherlands
6
Switzerland
6
Which sports have they doubled in? To date, 8 Olympians, 2 women and 6 men, have competed in 3 different sports/disciplines at the Winter and Summer Olympics, as follows:
Name
Gender
NOC(s)
Sports
Year(s)
Jaqueline Mourão
F
BRA
BIA/CCS/CYC
2004-2018
Georgia Simmerling
F
CAN
ASK/CYC/FRS
2010-2016
István Déván
M
HUN
ATH/CCS/NCO
1912-1924
Erik Elmsäter
M
SWE
ATH/CCS/NCO
1948-1952
Aleksandar Milenković
M
IOA/SCG/YUG
BIA/CCS/CYC
1992-2006
Béla Szepes
M
HUN
ATH/CCS/NCO
1924-1928
Philippe Van Volckxsom
M
BEL
ICH/ROW/SSK
1920-1928
Willi Zacharias
M
ROU
ASK/CCS/HAN
1936
Note that Willi Zacharias did this all in 1936. Until 1992 it was possible for Olympians to compete in the Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year, as the Games were not separated until the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics.
So in which sports should you specialize if you wish to compete in both editions of the Olympics? There have been 50 different combinations of sports among these 142 BSOs. The most common combinations are in the table below:
This is now well-known, as bobsledders are often recruited from track & field athletes, but it was not always so. Johann Baptist Gudenus (AUT) did it in 1932, but it was not until 1968 that it occurred again, when Britain’s Colin Campbell and Switzerland’s Eddy Hubacher first competed, and eventually appeared at both Games in athletics and boblsedding. However, it did not become commonplace until the 1980s.
I mentioned that prior to 1994 Olympians could compete in the Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year. Was that a frequent occurrence? It actually happened 39 times, and 2 athletes did it in 2 separate years – Charles Stoffel (LUX) competed in bobsledding and equestrian, quite the unusual combination, in both 1924 and 1928; and the ubiquitous Seiko Hashimoto competed in cycling and speed skating in both 1988 and 1992.
How many BSOs have competed in the Summer and Winter Olympics more than once each? This has only been done 10 times, by 4 women and 6 men, led by the redoubtable Seiko Hashimoto, who competed at the Summer Games three times (1988/1992/1996) and the Winter Games four times (1984/1988/1992/1994), for a total of 7 appearances, the most ever by this group of 142 BSOs. The only other Olympian to compete at the Summer and Winter Olympics 3 times each is Canadian cyclist/speed skater Clara Hughes.
What about winning a medal at both the Winter and Summer Olympics – has this been done? Yes, it has, and 5 times, by the following athletes:
Name
Gdr
NOC
Sport1
Summer
Sport2
Winter
Eddie Eagan
M
USA
BOX
1920
BOB
1932
Jacob Tullin Thams
M
NOR
SAI
1936
SKJ
1924
Christa Rothenburger-Luding
F
GDR
CYC
1988
SSK
1984/88/92
Clara Hughes
F
CAN
CYC
1996
SSK
2002/06/10
Lauryn Williams
F
USA
ATH
2004/12
BOB
2014
Of these, there were 2 men and 3 women, although a man has not done it since Jacob Tullin Thams in 1936. Of the above, only Eddie Eagan won gold medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics. Seiko Hashimoto does not make this list but she did win 1 Olympic medal, a bronze in the 1,500 metres speed skating at Albertville in 1992.
We have a quick post today for the Oldest Olympians blog, concerning the French gymnastics team at the 1948 London Games. When considering Olympic mysteries, we usually run into cases that come from before World War II, when the proceedings and competitors were often less well-documented. Today, however, we are going to look into the case of the 1948 competitor listed on Olympedia as “F. Vailee”.
(A picture of the 1948 French Olympic women’s gymnastics team, from Journal Le Petit Corse)
There was only a single gymnastics event for women contested at the 1948 London Olympics: the team all-around. France finished 10th out of the 11 teams, with only the Belgians faring worse. The competitor known as “F. Vailee” was one of the more successful members of the squad, yet she remains the only one about whom we know nothing. In fact, it seems that even what very little we have on her name is likely incorrect.
Research into French archives by Connor Mah has indicated that she was from Louveciennes and was active nationally from around 1947 through 1951, also representing her country internationally in 1949 in Italy. Her surname is given as Valle, Delle Valle, and Vallée, which was apparently her maiden name, although we do not have any clues regarding her age. The best candidate that he was able to uncover was a Carole or Caroline Della Valle of Belfort who was active in the sport in 1943, but this is far from a certain candidate. It does, however, raise the possibility that she was either foreign-born or born to a recently-immigrated family in France.
And that is really all we have. It seems unusual to have a postwar competitor whose very name eludes is, but she is not even the only French Olympian from 1948 where we lack this basic information. Perhaps we will cover some of the other nameless competitors in a future post but, whatever we bring you next, we hope that you will join us again!
