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.
[table]
Name,Birthday,Notes
Hassan Mohamed Abdin,January 20 1910,Alternate on the 1936 Egyptian football squad
Shiro Miura,1910,Alternate on the 1932 Japanese field hockey team
Tatsuo Saimura,1910,Participant in the Kendo demonstration events at the 1964 Summer Olympics
João da Costa,May 31 1911,Alternate on the 1932 Brazilian athletics team
Leonardo Valdés,1912, Alternate on the 1932 Cuban athletics team
Gheorghe Antoniade,May 10 1913,Alternate on the 1936 Romanian fencing team
René Lafforgue,1913,Did not start for France in alpine skiing’s combined event at the 1936 Winter Olympics
Renard Perez,December 8 1913,Alternate on the 1936 Uruguayan water polo squad
José Pescador,December 6 1913,Alternate on the 1936 Uruguayan water polo squad
Shigeo Takagi,July 28 1913, Alternate on the 1936 Japanese water polo squad
Nobel Valentini,November 10 1913, Alternate on the 1936 Uruguayan water polo squad
Johnny Brown,August 11 1914,Did not start for the United States in the boxing’s bantamweight division at the 1936 Summer Olympics
Masuzo Maeda,June 29 1914, Alternate on the 1936 Japanese water polo squad
Eulogio Quiroz,March 11 1914, Did not start for the Peru in the boxing’s light-heavyweight division at the 1936 Summer Olympics
Leopold Quittan,April 11 1914,Alternate on the 1936 Austrian athletics team
Saburo Takahashi,August 7 1914, Alternate on the 1936 Japanese water polo squad
[/table]
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!