Evelyn Furtsch, gold medalist in the 4×100 metre relay with the United States team at the 1932 Olympics, died in her sleep in Santa Ana, California on 5 March 2015. She was 100-years-old, only a few weeks short of her 101^st birthday (17 April). In our post (by Paul Tchir) a few days ago on oldest living Olympians, Furtsch was described as the oldest living gold medalist in track & field athletics, while in fact she had passed away a few weeks before we wrote that. The news has only just reached us.

There are still six remaining Olympic centenarians (see https://olympstats.com/2015/03/23/oldest-living-olympians-part-2/). The oldest living track & field Olympian remains Simone Schaller (USA-1932/1936), born 22 August 1912, and now over 102-years-old.

The oldest living female track & field Olympic gold medalist now becomes Dana Zátopková, Czech javelin thrower who won the 1952 Olympic title, who will turn 93-years-old on 19 September of this year, and is three days older than Esther Brand, who won the high jupm that year in Helsinki. The oldest living track & field gold medalist, however, is Cliff Bourland, who won gold in the 4×400 relay at the 1948 Olympics. Bourland was born 1 January 1921, and is now over 94-years-old. We believe the oldest living female gold medalist in any sport  is Finnish cross-country skiier Lydia Wideman, who won gold in the 10 km race at the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics, and was born on 17 May 1920.

Rest in peace to Evelyn Furtsch, a pioneer in women’s sports in the United States, and our sympathies to her family.

From our group of OlyMADMen, the following has been produced by Paul Tchir, aka Canadian Paul, our resident expert on oldest living Olympians.

 

The death at the age of 106 of Swiss artist Hans Erni, believed to be the oldest living former Olympian, raises the issue of who has succeeded him in this title. Erni was the second-longest-lived Olympian of all time, behind his predecessor to the title American Walter Walsh, as well of one of very few remaining individuals who competed in the Olympic Art Competitions, which were last held in 1948. Although there were are a handful of Olympians older than Erni whose death has not been confirmed, it seems unlikely that someone would have reached 106 years of age in the era of the internet and escaped any notice whatsoever.

Erni was born in 1909 and was the last known living Olympian to have been born that year. His longevity meant that he outlived the final known survivors from 1910 (Italian Attilio Pavesi, a double Olympic champion from the 1932 cycling tournament, who died August 2, 2011) and 1911 (Chilean Juan Reccius, a competitor in the 1936 triple jump, who died June 29, 2012), although Mien Klaver, an alternate on the Dutch women’s 4×100 metre relay team, turned 104 on February 26 of this year. Olympians born in 1912, however, have fared far better, with four of the five Olympians who reached their centenary in 2012 still with us as of this posting (the fifth, French skiing legend and 1936 Olympic bronze medalist Émile Allais died several months after his 100^th birthday). They are:

Guo Jie of China, who took part in the men’s discus throw at the 1936 Summer Olympics. Guo, born January 16, 1912 in Dalian, is his nation’s longest-lived competitor, the last member of its delegation to the 1936 Games, and was still physically active at his 102^nd birthday. To the best of our knowledge, he now takes the title of the oldest living Olympic competitor.

Swedish diver Ingeborg Sjöqvist, born April 19, 1912, who took part in the 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics and was runner-up in platform diving at the 1931 and 1934 European Championships.

American athlete Simone Schaller, born August 22, 1912, who participated in the 80 m hurdles tournament in 1932 and 1936 and is the longest-lived American female Olympian.

Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein, born September 14, 1912, who represented Liechtenstein in bobsled at the 1936 Winter Olympics and is the longest-lived Winter Olympian.

Additionally, there are three other known living Olympic centenarians:

Sándor Tarics, born September 23, 1913, who was a member of Hungary’s gold medal-winning water polo team in 1936 and is confirmed as the oldest living Olympic champion and the second- longest-lived Olympic champion, behind American James Stillman Rockefeller, who died in August 2004 at the age of 102 years, 63 days.

Evelyn Furtsch, born April 17, 1914, who earned a gold medal with the United States’ 4x100m relay team in 1932 and is the longest-lived Olympic track and field gold medalist.

Evelyn Furtsch

American John Lysak (born August 16, 1914), who competed in the Men’s Folding Kayak, 10 km canoeing event at the 1936 Summer Games.

Outside of centenarians, Carla Marangoni (born November 13, 1915) is notable as the last known survivor of the 1928 Summer Olympics: she won a silver medal for Italy in the team gymnastics competition that year. Moreover, it is also possible to produce a definitive list of the six oldest Olympic champions:

Sándor Tarics, born September 23, 1913, M HUN WAP 1936

Evelyn Furtsch, born April 17, 1914, F USA ATH 1932

Durward Knowles, born November 2, 1917, M BAH SAI 1964 (also bronze in 1956 and competed in 1948, 1952, 1960, 1968, 1972, and 1988)

Martin Lundström, born May 30, 1918, M SWE CCS 1948 (twice, also bronze in 1952)

Adolph Kiefer, born June 27, 1918, M USA SWI 1936

Jack Günthard, born January 8, 1920, M SUI GYM 1952 (also silver)

Betty Brey won two gold medals at the Pan-American Games, winning with the 4×100 freestyle relay in 1951 and the medley relay in 1955. She also won individual silvers in the 200 freestyle in 1951 and the 100 butterfly in 1955. Brey won three national titles, swimming with the winning Walter Reed Swim Club medley relay at the 1956 AAU Indoors and Outdoors, and winning the 100 yard butterfly at the 1955 AAU Indoors, where she set a short course world record. She competed as Betty Mullen until 1956. At the 1956 Olympics she swam in the heats of the 4×100 freestyle relay, and by the rules in force at that time, she did not receive a medal.

Brey attended Purdue University where she was a majorette with the Purdue Marching Band, She was also an accomplished musician and later coached swimming at George Washington University. Brey is a member of the Indiana Swimming Hall of Fame. Her son, Mike Brey, became a well-known college basketball coach in the United States, serving as an assistant coach at Duke from 1987-1995, as head coach of the University of Delaware from 1995-2000 and as head coach at Notre Dame beginning in 2000. His mother, Olympian Betty Mullen Brey, died the morning that he coached his Notre Dame team to a victory against Butler in the 2015 NCAA Tournament. She must be smiling down today, cheering on the Irish.

Dutch cyclist Marianne Vos has announced that she will be focusing on mountain biking for the coming season, as she aims to win a gold medal in the cross-country in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Vos has already won gold medals in track cycling (2008) and road cycling (2012), and winning in mountain-biking would a third gold in a third cycling discipline. Has that been done before?

Marianne Vos winning the road race in Londen 2012

Combining cycling disciplines is not rare. Quite a few of today’s road racing stars – where most money is earned – have started out on the track or on a mountain-bike. And many of them have excelled in both, as there’s well over 400 cyclists who have competed in multiple disciplines at the Olympics.

Winning medals in multiple disciplines is much rarer, although there are still 23 Olympians who have achieved this. All of them have done this in two disciplines – so Vos would be the first to do it in three. In all cases, the combination was between track cycling and road racing. Of these 23, 7 have won gold medals in both disciplines. (A full list of all track/road medallists follows below.)

The first time a cyclist won medals in more than one discipline was in 1906, when two Frenchmen, Fernand Vast and Maurice Bardonneau, won medals in both types of events. Women’s cycling was introduced at the Olympics only in 1984, but by 1992 two women had already doubled in cycling disciplines. On the podium of the Barcelona women’s 3,000 m individual pursuit, both silver medallist Kathy Watt and bronze medallist Rebecca Twigg had already won medals in road cycling. Only one cyclist has won multiple medals in multiple disciplines. This is Dutch cyclist Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel, who in 2000-2004 collected three golds on the road, while adding one of each color in track cycling.

Although Vos is inexperienced in mountain-biking competition, her prospects of qualifying and winning (a medal) are not that bad. Vos is a 7-time world champion in cyclo-cross, a non-Olympic cycling discipline that features off-road racing with regular width tyres, as opposed to the “fat” MTB tyres.

Marianne Vos riding towards her seventh cyclo-cross world title

But even if Marianne Vos would fail to become the first cyclist to win (gold) medals in three cycling disciplines, she could still set a record by participating. Since the third (mountainbiking) and fourth (BMX) discipline have been added at the Olympics in 1996 and 2008 respectively, there have been several athletes to compete in one of these in addition to another cycling discipline, but so far no cyclist has competed in three.

Bradley Wiggins won his fourth Olympic cycling gold – and his first on the road – at the London 2012 Games

Although the rumor mill was in action for several weeks noting that this would occur, Toyota officially signed on today to be a TOP Sponsor of the Olympic Movement for the 2017-2020 and 2021-2024 Olympiads. This is a game changer in many ways.

The figures announced are that Toyota will provide support to the IOC equal to $835 million (US) over 8 years. In the most recent Olympiads TOP Sponsor support has been in the $100-$150 million range per Olympiad, but Toyota is increasing this to the $400-$425 million range.

Below we give the details of all the TOP sponsors since the program began in 1984. TOP originally stood for The Olympic Programme, but more recently has been changed to The Olympic Partners. TOP was devised by then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and Vice-President Dick Pound as a way to generate income for the IOC and make it less dependent on the largesse of US television networks. The plan was to make it exclusive, with only a few sponsors, and only one in each product category, but to charge dearly for that exclusivity. The idea was based on the sponsorship policy that Peter Ueberroth used to make the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics so financially successful.

But paying dearly is relative. In the 1985-88 Olympiad, TOP brought in about $96 million total, while companies now must pay more than that each simply to be a member. Official figures are not always announced anymore so the numbers below from 2004-2016 must be considered estimates, but they are certainly close for total revenue generated by the IOC. You will note that for TOP VIII (2013-16) total revenue to the IOC was about $1.15 billion (US). The Toyota support for TOP IX (2017-20) will already push those numbers to $1.56 billion (US), a 35% increase.

But if the Toyota deal becomes more standard, and other companies are pushed to provide support in the same range, this could completely change Olympic economics for Organizing Committees (OCOGs). Let’s assume that the IOC can get $300 million per Olympiad now per company, still less than what Toyota is paying, and that it gets between 10-15 TOP sponsors each Olympiad (there have been a maximum of 12). That now brings the numbers up to the $3-4 billion range per TOP program (perhaps more), an increase in the 250-300% range.

Further, the IOC provides money from the TOP program to OCOGs with most recent figures being about 50% provided to the OCOGs and a large percentage of the rest to the NOCs (International Federations receive IOC money from television sponsorship money). The IOC has kept only about 10% of TOP dollars for its own operating expenses. Assuming those expenses are relatively fixed, increasing perhaps slightly more than inflation, the IOC could now afford to provide a larger percentage of TOP income to OCOGs and NOCs, and this would be a larger percentage of an already greatly increased corpus.

While recent summer host cities have been receiving money in the $1.0-1.5 billion range from the IOC, via TOP income and television contracts, as seed money to get started with their operating expenses, it is possible, with this new paradigm for TOP sponsorship that this could greatly increase, perhaps more than even double. That would make the option to host Olympics again more financially viable to host cities.

A few other things about the Toyota sponsorship. Its becomes the first automobile manufacturer to become a TOP sponsor. It is the 30^th company to become a TOP sponsor and its sponsorship of TOP is also a landmark for the IOC, making it the 100^th sponsorship overall, as many companies have been sponsors multiple times. Coca-Cola, Matushita/Panasonic, and VISA have been TOP sponsors at every Olympiad since the program’s inception, although Coca-Cola and VISA have not yet signed on for 2021-24. As Michael Payne, former director of IOC marketing, pointed out in a tweet, it will be interesting to see how the Toyota deal affects negotiations for future TOP sponsorship with Coca-Cola and VISA.

A bit more on the tragic helicopter crash that took the lives of French swimming gold medalist Camille Muffat, French boxing medalist Alexis Vastine, and renowned French sailor, although not an Olympian, Florence Arthaud.

Muffat was the gold medalist in the women’s 400 metre freestyle at the London Olympics, and thus died while holding the crown. She becomes the 83^rd Olympian to have died as the holding gold medalist. She is the 29^th Olympian to have been an individual gold medalist, but dying before the event was next contested. (Earlier post incorrect as when checking the database I looked for Olympians dying within 4 years, and neglected some of the 1912 and 1936 Olympians who waited 8 and 12 years for the next Olympics. Thanks to Harri Piironen for pointing this out.)

The full list of the 83 Olympians who died while the holder of a gold medal is as follows:

Here is the list of the 29 individual gold medalists who died as holders:

Full details of the Olympians, the events in which they competed, and their deaths can be found at www.sports-reference.com/olympics.

The time you won your town the race,
We chaired you through the marketplace.
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder high.

Yesterday, two helicopters crashed in Argentina during the filming of a reality survival show. All aboard the choppers were killed, including French swimmer Camille Muffat, a gold medalist in the 400 metre freestyle at the 2012 London Olympics, and Alexis Vastine, a French boxing bronze medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was, sadly, not the first time that plane disasters claimed the lives of Olympic athletes, often those still young, still in their prime, still with lives to live, victories to win, and laughs to laugh.

Today the road all runners come,
Shoulder high we bring you home.
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Camille Muffat 1989-2015 RIP

Shortly after the 1948 Winter Olympics, on 8 November 1948, the Czechoslovak ice hockey team boarded a flight from Paris to London, but the plane disappeared over the English Channel, and six Czechoslovak Olympians, along with all the other passengers, would skate no more. Gone were Jaroslav Jiřík, Karel Stibor, Ladislav Troják, Miloslav Pokorný, Vilibald Šťovík, and Zdeněk Jarkovský.

Smart lad to slip betimes away,
From fields where glory does not stay.
For quickly though the laurel grows,
It withers quicker than a rose.

On 15 February 1961 the US figure skating was travelling to the World Championships in Praha, Czechoslovakia, when their Sabena Boeing 707 crashed on approach to the Brussels airport in Belgium, Everyone was killed including the entire US figure skating team, which included Olympians Laurie Owen, Maribel Owen, Maribel Vinson Owen, Dudley Richards, Ray Hadley, Jr., and Ila Ray Hadley.

Eyes the shady night has shut,
Cannot see the record cut.
And silence sounds no worse than cheers,
After earth has stopped the ears.

In August 1979, two Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134s collided over Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukraine, killing 178 including the complete football team of Pakhtakor Toshkent. On the plane was Soviet footballer Vladimir Fyodorov, who had played for the Soviet Union at the 1976 Montréal Olympics.

Now you will not swell the rout,
Of lads who wore their honors out.
Runners whom renown outran,
And the name died before the man.

On 27 April 1993, a Buffalo DHC-5D of the Zambian Air Force crashed off the coast of Gabon about 500 metres from Libreville, killing all 30 aboard including 18 Zambian footballers and their coaches. This include 8 previous Zambian Olympians – Alex Chola, Derby Makinka, Efford Chabala, Eston Mulenga, Godfrey Chitalu, Richard Mwanza, Samuel Chomba, and Wisdom Chansa.

The Zambian team at the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations pay tribute to the lost generation of Zambian football.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

On 7 September 2011, a Yakovlev Yak-42D carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team crashed on take-off from Tunoshna Airport, in Yaroslavl, Russia. Olympians from five different nations were lost that night – Pavol Demitra (Slovakia), Stefan Liv (Sweden), Ruslan Saley (Belarus), Kārlis Skrastiņš (Latvia), and Josef Vašíček (Czech Republic).

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s. – A. E. Housman

There have been others. And likely there will sadly be more in the future. For the most complete list of Olympians who have died in plane crashes, see our list at http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/friv/lists.cgi?id=2. May they all rest in peace, may we give honor to their lives, and may they stay, in our memories, forever young.

Today, 8 March, is International Women’s Day, which has been celebrated now since 1909. So in terms of the Olympics, which nations have been most fair in promoting female participation? This is a difficult question to answer as many of the most prominent nations have competed in the Olympics for the longest time, when there were far fewer women’s events. But here are the nations that have had the highest percentage of females on their Olympic teams, overall, looking at the Summer Games only:

Among the major nations, the players you would expect, here is how their Summer Olympic team breakdown works out:

Again, remember that many of these nations competed prior to World War II, when there were very few women’s events.

And what about those nations who have had very few, in some cases, almost no, female Summer Olympians:

Among current IOC Member nations, only three have had only 1 female competitor – British Virgin Islands (22), Brunei (5), and Tuvalu (4), while six have had only 2 women compete – Botswana (50), Kiribati (5), Monaco (62), Nauru (6), Oman (37), and Saudi Arabia (140). The numbers in parentheses indicate those nations’ male Olympians

 

As noted, in those early years, there were very few events for women at the Olympics. How bad was it, Johnny? Here is the breakdown:

Wojdan Shaherkani, Judo player from Saudi Arabia – London 2012

So, as you can see, prior to World War II, women rarely had even 15% of the events in which they could compete, with the exception of 1900 when there were a lot of mixed events.

How many women have actually competed at the Summer Olympics, as a percentage of the total, since 1896? Here is that table:

Year	Women	Total	Wom%	WomNOCs	NOCs	%NOC
1896	0	246	0.0%	0	12	0.0%
1900	23	1614	1.4%	6	31	19.4%
1904	6	650	0.9%	1	15	6.7%
1906	6	841	0.7%	2	21	9.5%
1908	44	2023	2.2%	3	22	13.6%
1912	53	2377	2.2%	10	27	37.0%
1920	77	2670	2.9%	14	29	48.3%
1924	135	3067	4.4%	20	44	45.5%
1928	274	2878	9.5%	25	46	54.3%
1932	126	1334	9.4%	19	38	50.0%
1936	329	3956	8.3%	27	49	55.1%
1948	393	4073	9.6%	32	59	54.2%
1952	521	4932	10.6%	41	69	59.4%
1956	383	3344	11.5%	38	72	52.8%
1960	612	5350	11.4%	45	83	54.2%
1964	680	5137	13.2%	53	93	57.0%
1968	783	5557	14.1%	54	112	48.2%
1972	1060	7113	14.9%	67	121	55.4%
1976	1260	6073	20.7%	65	92	70.7%
1980	1123	5259	21.4%	56	80	70.0%
1984	1569	6798	23.1%	95	140	67.9%
1988	2202	8453	26.0%	118	159	74.2%
1992	2723	9386	29.0%	134	169	79.3%
1996	3519	10339	34.0%	168	197	85.3%
2000	4069	10648	38.2%	191	200	95.5%
2004	4304	10561	40.8%	192	201	95.5%
2008	4611	10901	42.3%	195	204	95.6%
2012	4657	10520	44.3%	201	205	98.0%
Totals	25467	107829	23.6%	209	221	94.6%

So as we celebrate International Women’s Day, we can see that at the Olympics, in terms of female participation, things were once very bad, they are better now, but there is still a long way to go.