In last week’s Oldest Olympians blog, we looked at ten Olympic silver medalists who would be over the age of 90, but for whom we had no information on whether or not they are alive. Today we are going to begin our look at bronze medalists who fall in this category. As there are 26 individuals who qualify, however, we are going to have to split the list in two. We have already looked at two of these individuals: Egyptian wrestlers Ibrahim Orabi and Abdel Aal Rashid, who won bronze medals in 1948 and 1952 Games respectively. We are going to divide the remaining 24 into those who competed at the 1936 and 1948 Olympics, and those took part afterwards.

Francisco Risiglione – Bronze medalist for Argentina in light-heavyweight boxing at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Francisco Risiglione, born January 18, 1917, whose surname is also seen spelled incorrectly as Resiglione, won a bronze medal for Argentina at the 1936 Summer Olympics in the light-heavyweight category and also took gold in that category at the 1937 Pan American Boxing Championships. He embarked upon a professional career in 1940 and was moderately successful in his fights through 1945, although he lost his bout for the Argentine heavyweight title in 1943 to Alberto Lovell, a 1932 Olympic champion. We strongly suspect that Risiglione is deceased, but we have yet to come across any confirmation of that fact.

Willy Hufschmid – Bronze medalist for Switzerland in handball at the 1936 Summer Olympics (pictured in Turnen und Handball: 100 Jahre RTV Basel 1879)

As we mentioned when discussing our silver medal mysteries, young Olympians in team sports prior to World War II tended to be particularly susceptible to disappearing from the athletic scene after their victories, as their prime playing years were lost to the conflict. Such is likely the case for Willy Hufschmid, born October 9, 1918, who was an upcoming national player at the time he helped Switzerland win a bronze medal in handball at the 1936 Summer Games. We have been unable, however, to trace his life and career after World War II.

Mauro Cía – Bronze medalist for Argentina in light-heavyweight boxing at the 1948 Summer Olympics

A spiritual defender of Risiglione’s medal from the 1936 Games, Mauro Cía captured bronze from Argentina in light-heavyweight boxing at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Cía had no ambitions to become a professional boxer, although he did appear in a few boxing films, and this is the most likely explanation for his disappearance from historical sporting records after the Games. His date of birth is sometimes seen as June 12, 1919 or 1925, but we believe that July 3, 1919 is correct.

Ine Schäffer – Bronze medalist for Austria in the shot put at the 1948 Summer Olympics

The athletics career of Ine Schäffer, born March 28, 1923, culminated in a bronze medal in the shot put for Austria at the 1948 Summer Olympics. She continued to compete for several years thereafter, but eventually moved to Canada, after which her whereabouts and life story are apparently unknown.

Enrico Perucconi – Bronze medalist for Italy in the 4×100 metres relay at the 1948 Summer Olympics (picture from the Italian Olympic Committee)

Enrico Perucconi, born January 4, 1925, had an athletics career that was somewhat less distinguished than the teammates with whom he won a bronze medal for Italy in the 4×100 metres relay at the 1948 Summer Olympics, which perhaps accounts for the limited information we were available to find on him. We have no major results for him after the Games nor any information on his subsequent life.

Ivano Fontana – Bronze medalist for Italy in middleweight boxing at the 1948 Summer Olympics (picture from BoxRec)

Italian boxer Ivano Fontana, born November 25, 1926, had well-documented amateur and professional careers. He won bronze medals in the middleweight division at both the 1948 Summer Olympics and the 1949 European Championships, before turning professional for nearly a decade He won Italy’s middleweight title in 1952 on his second attempt, but eventually switched to light-heavyweight and won that national title in 1955. He continued to fight after losing, and failing to regain, the title in 1956, but his career was thereafter sporadic until his 1958 retirement. We were unable to find any information about his life after that.

Alessandro D’Ottavio – Bronze medalist for Italy in welterweight boxing at the 1948 Summer Olympics (picture from BoxRec)

The career of Alessandro D’Ottavio, born August 27, 1927, was similar to that of his boxing compatriot Ivano Fontana. He turned professional soon after winning a bronze medal in the welterweight class at the 1948 Summer Olympics and, after two unsuccessful attempts at the Italian middleweight title and one in the light-heavyweight, he finally captured the latter in July 1957. He lost it less than five months later and, after a failed attempt to regain it in 1958, retired. Just as with Fontana, we were unable to find any more information on him beyond that.

Viola Myers – Bronze medalist for Canada in the 4×100 metre relay at the 1948 Summer Olympics

We have mentioned in the past that the sporting legacies of the Canadian women who won the bronze medal in the 4×100 metre relay at the 1948 Summer Olympics have not fared well over time. Pat Jones died in August 2000 with almost no fanfare, Diane Foster is deceased on an unknown date according to the Canadian Olympic Committee, and Nancy Mackay died in 2016 in a nursing home without any notice whatsoever. That leaves Viola Myers, born c. 1927, who is not known to be either living or deceased, despite a lengthy and distinguished national and international career that earned her induction into the Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame in 2011.

Jacques Lefèvre – Bronze medalist for France in team sabre fencing at the 1952 Summer Olympics

Although French fencer Jacques Lefèvre, born February 1, 1928, did not reach the podium until the 1952 Summer Olympics, we are including him in today’s blog because he participated in his first of five consecutive editions of the Games in 1948. Competing in both the individual and team sabre events each time, only once, in 1960, did he fail to achieve at least fourth place in at least one event. His crowning Olympic moment, however, came when he captured bronze in the team sabre event in 1952. Considering that he also won gold and bronze medals in individual and team sabre respectively at the 1951 Mediterranean Games, we suspect that our difficulty in ascertaining his living status has more to do with language barriers and the commonality of his name than an actual dearth of information.

We have discussed fewer than half of the bronze medalists for whom we are missing information on in this post, but we feel that this is an appropriate place to stop. We will continue our research and, next week, hope to bring you more on the bronze medalists who seem to have disappeared from sport’s historical record. We hope you will join and help us as we at least attempt to preserve more of their sporting legacies!

For the last two weeks Oldest Olympians has been blogging about athletes for whom we have no information on whether or not they are alive. For some, the fact that Olympians have disappeared from the historical record may not be particularly shocking, particularly if one considers that many of these athletes placed well down the list of finishers and participated decades ago, in a time where international sport was not as prestigious or well-covered by the media as it is today. It may be more surprising, however, to learn that there are numerous Olympic medalists who fall into this category, whether due to language barriers or the athletes simply having left the sport and the public eye after their triumphs.

We have already covered one champion, Micheline Lannoy, but today we are going to look at the 11 runners-up for whom we have been unable to confirm if they are alive. One we have already covered in this blog: Egyptian weightlifter Salah Soliman, born June 24, 1916, who took silver in weightlifting’s featherweight division at the 1936 Summer Olympics. We are therefore going to focus on the other 10 who nearly captured gold, and then seem to have faded away.

Jaroslav Volak – Silver medalist for Austria in handball at the 1936 Summer Olympics

It is unfortunate that Olympians who win their medals as part of a team sometimes slip between the cracks when it comes to their life stories. Volak, born July 7, 1915, was a handball player for the Wiener Athletiksport Club when he was selected to represent Austria in the sport at the 1936 Summer Games. He won a silver medal with the national squad but, aside from that, there appears to be very little information available on him as an individual.

Rolf Spring – Silver medalist for Switzerland in coxed fours rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Rolf Spring of Switzerland’s Ruderclub Zürich, born March 19, 1917, competed in three coxed rowing events at the 1936 Summer Olympics – the pairs, fours, and eights – and was most successful in the fours, where he won a silver medal alongside his teammates. Unlike the rest of his squad, he earned no other major international medals and thus, despite his relatively young age, he seems to have disappeared from the sporting scene after his accomplishment in Berlin, likely because his career was interrupted by World War II.

Paul Eberhard – Silver medalist for Switzerland in two-man bobsleigh at the 1948 Winter Olympics (pictured in the Zürcher Bob Club 50 Year Retrospective)

Like several others on this list, Paul Eberhard, born October 30, 1917, had his only major international success at the Olympics, in this case winning a silver medal in the two-man bobsleigh event at the 1948 Winter Games. Eberhard continued to be prominent in sport, however, as he had been the founder of the Zürcher Bob Club and served as its first president until 1950. After that, however, we were unable to find much trace of him.

Luciano Negrini – Silver medalist for Italy in coxed pairs rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Much like Rolf Spring, Luciano Negrini, born June 22, 1920, was several years younger than the teammates who helped him win a silver medal in the coxed pairs event at the 1936 Summer Olympics and therefore did not earn any other international medals prior to World War II. Although potentially young enough to have still been competing after the conflict, there is no evidence that he did so.

Robert Chef d’Hôtel – Silver medalist for France in the 4×400 metres athletics relay at the 1948 Summer Olympics

French track and field athlete Robert Chef d’Hôtel, born February 2, 1922, is the first person on this list to have won a major international medal outside of the Olympics: gold in the 4×400 metres relay at the 1946 European Championships. He followed this up with silver in that event at the 1948 Summer Games, but seems to have retired from active competition shortly thereafter, as we have been unable to find any record of his successes after the Olympics.

Marianne Werner – Silver and bronze medalist for Germany in the shot put at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics

The only individual on this list with two Olympic medals, Marianne Werner of Germany, born January 4, 1924, won silver in the shot put at the 1952 Summer Olympics and bronze in 1956. In 1958, she won the European Championships in that event and did not retire until the 1960s. Heavily involved in the academic side of sport in her later life, she earned several distinctions and we suspect, therefore, that she is still alive, as her death would very likely be a newsworthy event. Unfortunately, due to language barriers, we have been unable to confirm that this is the case.

Eduardo Risso – Silver medalist for Uruguay in the single sculls at the 1948 Summer Olympics

Unlike the other rowing medalists on this list, Uruguayan Eduardo Risso, born February 25, 1925, had an individual triumph when he was runner-up in the single sculls event at the 1948 Summer Olympics. His career lasted until at least 1952, as he participated in that year’s edition of the Games, and even had a postage stamp released in his honor, yet we remain unable to confirm whether or not he is still alive, although several sites seem to suggest that he is.

Vladimir Kryukov – Silver medalist for the Soviet Union in the coxed eights at the 1952 Summer Olympics

Russian Vladimir Kryukov, born October 2, 1925, helped the Soviet Union’s coxed eights team take silver at the 1952 Summer Olympics and was part of the squad again in 1956, when they did not medal. He also took home gold medals from the European Championships in 1953, 1954, and 1955. Beyond that, however, we have not been able to uncover much more about his life, including whether or not he is still alive.

Leo Wery – Silver medalist for the Netherlands in field hockey at the 1952 Summer Olympics

Leo Wery, born March 27, 1926, focused much of his attention on building his career as a lawyer, but he did have time to help the Dutch team win a silver medal in the field hockey tournament at the 1952 Summer Olympics. Wery was later a lawyer in the oil industry, so we find it unlikely that he would have died without any notice, and thus believe that he is still alive and that we have simply been unable to confirm it.

Leonid Shcherbakov – Silver medalist for the Soviet Union in the triple jump at the 1952 Summer Olympics

The youngest entry on our list, Russian Leonid Shcherbakov, born April 7, 1927, was not only a distinguished athlete, but a prominent coach and trainer as well. He won a silver medal for the Soviet Union at the 1952 Summer Olympics, but only managed sixth at the 1956 edition. Additionally, he was a two-time European Champion, in 1950 and 1954 and held the world record in the event for nearly two years. Once again, therefore, we suspect that Shcherbakov is still alive, but language barriers prevent us from confirming this.

Finally, we would be remiss not to mention that we are unable to confirm that three of the four Swiss runners-up in the coxed fours event at the 1928 Summer Olympics – Otto Bucher, Ernst Haas, and Joseph Meyer – are deceased, although given the ages that would have had to have been to compete in 1928 (the fourth teammate, for example, was born in 1902), it is incredibly unlikely that they are still alive. Since we have no dates of birth for these three individuals, however, we cannot say for certain.

We hope that this list has given you an introduction to vicissitudes of international sport, and how even very prominent athletes can sometimes slip through historical cracks. At the very least, we hope that we have shown how difficult it can be to find sufficient information to celebrate their achievements and legacies properly. We will continue to try our best next week, when we look into some perhaps-forgotten bronze medalists. As you can imagine, there are more entries next week than there were this week, but we hope that you will join us nonetheless!

A few days ago we compiled a list of Olympians who had yet to be confirmed as deceased and would be older than the oldest Olympian, John Lysak, were they still alive. We now want to add to that list by noting the 16 non-starters and demonstration event competitors that fall into the same category. We do this not only for the sake of completing our previous post but because, as the example of Dutch 1932 athletics alternate Mien Schopman-Klaver, who died recently at the age of 107, showed, these competitors provide us with important links to Games that are disappearing from living memory and their achievements and sporting legacies are worth celebrating even if they did not actually get to compete at the Olympics.

As with our previous post, we suspect that all of these individuals are in fact deceased, we simply cannot confirm it to be the case.

American boxer Johnny Brown,

pictured in the March 7, 1936 edition of the Chicago Tribune.

We are going to shift our focus somewhat next week and look into Olympic medalists over the age of 90 for whom we cannot confirm if they are alive or deceased. We have already discussed the one gold medalist who falls into this category – Belgian figure skater Micheline Lannoy – so tune in next week as we look into silver and bronze. You may be surprised at just how many medalists we are missing information for!

Last month we noted the 104^th birthday of American kayaker John Lysak, born August 16, 1914, who is, to the best of our knowledge, the oldest living Olympian. As we have mentioned in the past, however, there are approximately 2500 Olympians born between 1908 and 1928 for whom we have no confirmation on whether they are alive or deceased, not counting the 564 Olympians who participated in the Games in 1928, 1932, and 1936 for whom we have no information on their date, or even year, of birth. Today we want to focus on a small subset of those 2500, the 231 Olympians who would be older than John Lysak if they were still alive. We have already covered the two medalists who fall into this category, Ibrahim Orabi and Adolf Müller, and 16 more are either non-starters or demonstration event competitors, so to shorten the list just a little, we are going to look at the remaining 213 by year of birth.

It should be noted that discussing these individuals in no way represents any belief on the part of Oldest Olympians that these athletes are still alive; we simply cannot confirm that they are deceased. In fact, we find it highly unlikely that any Olympian who is between the age of 104 and 109 would have somehow escaped our attention completely. It remains, however, an important caveat and is always a possibility: language barriers, poor media coverage of older athletes, and desire for privacy from a generation when the Games were not as big as they are now all contribute to the chance that someone may have eluded our radar. In the past, several Olympic centenarians have reached that milestone with little public fanfare, sometimes not being revealed until their death. We therefore feel that it is important to share this list to make our research methods a little more public and subject to scrutiny, and perhaps solve a case or two along the way.

On the left, Abdel Sattar Tarabulsi, who represented Lebanon in sport shooting at the 1952 Summer Olympics. Photograph from: https://www.abdogedeon.com/volleyball/NOUJOUM/abdelsattar%20traboulsi.html

1908

Syed Muhammad Salim, who represented Pakistan in field hockey at the 1948 Summer Olympics

1909

Rashad Shafshak, who was a member of Egypt’s 1936 Olympic basketball team

1910

Dora Schönemann competed in two swimming events for Germany at the 1928 Summer Olympics

1911

Roma Wagner represented Austria as a 100 metre swimmer at the 1936 Summer Olympics

1912

Pedro Landero, who represented Philippines in bantamweight weightlifting at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics. Photograph from: http://www.chidlovski.net/liftup/l_athleteStatsResult.asp?a_id=1902

1913

Yushoku Cho, who represented Japan in two speed skating events at the 1936 Winter Olympics.

1914

Having produced this table, we may in the future decide to create a more detailed and sortable table, including Olympic participations, on our website (which is here by the way) so that we can update it as time goes on. Next week, however, we will take a look at those 16 non-starters and demonstration event competitors in order to complete our look into the realm of research on the Oldest Olympians. We hope you will join us!