Last week, we looked at all of the “possibly living” Olympians born before the former Oldest Olympian, John Lysak. As we have mentioned in the past, there are approximately 2000 Olympians, non-starters, and demonstration event competitors born between 1910 and 1930 for whom we have no confirmation on whether they are alive or deceased. In addition, there are 427 individuals 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 2000, the 72 who were born between Lysak and the Olympian currently believed to be the oldest living, Félix Sienra. Seven were non-starters, so to shorten the list just a little, we are going to look at the remaining 65 by year of birth. Astute readers may notice one more omission, that of Jaroslav Volak, who was the oldest Olympic medalist with an uncertain living status. We received information to indicate that he was deceased (albeit without a specific date), and thus we were able to remove him from the list.

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 106 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, sometimes not being revealed until their death. We feel, therefore, that it is important to share this list to make our research methods a little more public and subject to scrutiny, perhaps solving a case or two along the way.

Santiago Massini represented Argentina in four fencing events across two editions of the Olympic Games, in 1952 and 1956.

1914

[table]

Name,Nation,Sport,Birthday

Yukie Arata,Japan,Swimming,October 25 1914

Antonio Cuba,Peru,Athletics,December 10 1914

Norio Fujimura,Japan,Sailing,November 14 1914

Jihei Furusho,Japan,Water polo,December 15 1914

Vítězslav Hloušek,Czechoslovakia,Basketball,October 31 1914

Masaru Kashiwahara,Japan,Rowing,October 30 1914

Emmanouil Mallidis,Greece,Swimming, 1914

Sayed Masoud,Egypt,Weightlifting,November 15 1914

Santiago Massini,Argentina,Fencing,August 20 1914

Iwao Masuda,Japan,Athletics,December 25 1914

Eusebio Ojeda,Chile,Rowings, 1914

František Prokop,Czechoslovakia,Sport shooting, September 131914

Panagiotis Provatopoulos,Greece,Swimming and water polo, 1914

Edgar Ramsay,South Africa,Rowing,October 20 1914

Joaquim Sampaio,Portugal,Sport shooting,August 30 1914

Osamu Takechi,Japan,Field hockey, 1914

Sotirios Vatanidis,Greece,Wrestling, 1914

Gretl Weikert,Austria,Alpine skiing,September 25 1914

Hideichi Yoshioka,Japan,Wrestling,September 10 1914

Zou Wenzhi,China,Basketball, 1914

[/table]

Hatsuko Morioka represented Japan in four swimming events across two editions of the Games, in 1932 and 1936.

1915

[table]

Name,Nation,Sport,Birthday

Luis Aguirrebeña,Chile,Water polo,August 26 1915

Basilio Álvez,Uruguay,Boxing,July 11 1915

Sayed Ali Babaci,Afghanistan,Field hockey,March 12 1915

Karel Brandstätter,Czechoslovakia,Rowing,February 5 1915

Pierre Carlier,Switzerland,Basketball,December 3 1915

José Castro,Uruguay,Water polo,February 19 1915

Petre Cișmigiu,Romania,Sport shooting,June 12 1915

Max Colli,Austria,Rowing,December 5 1915

Manuel Consiglieri,Peru,Athletics,November 15 1915

José D’Andrea,Argentina,Fencing,November 26 1915

Ali Erfan,Egypt,Wrestling,March 18 1915

Michihiro Ito,Japan,Field hockey,March 20 1915

Takeo Ito,Japan,Field hockey,January 5 1915

Vilém Jakl,Czechoslovakia,Cycling,February 22 1915

Torajiro Kataoka,Japan,Water polo,Febraury 7 1915

Karel Kuhn,Czechoslovakia,Basketball,September 14 1915

Kyu-Hwan Lee,Japan,Boxing,February 14 1915

Werner Lehmann,Switzerland,Swimming,August 18 1915

Nemanja Marković,Yugoslavia,Sport shooting,July 7 1915

Juan Ángel Martini Sr.,Argentina,Sport shooting,December 28 1915

Jan Matoušek,Czechoslovakia,Rowing,April 19 1915

Spyridon Mavrogiorgos,Greece,Swimming, 1915

Mitsuo Mizutani,Japan,Wrestling,October 5 1915

Estevão Molnar,Brazil,Fencing,August 26 1915

Hatsuko Morioka,Japan,Swimming,June 22 1915

Armando Moutinho,Portugal,Water polo,January 4 1915

Uichi Munakata,Japan,Basketball,November 26 1915

Junko Nishida,Japan,Athletics,November 3 1915

Lidoro Oliver,Argentina,Boxing,September 18 1915

Reiko Osawa,Japan,Diving,November 28 1915

Konstantinos Pantazis,Greece,Athletics, 1915

Denise Parmentier,Belgium,Gymnastics,January 5 1915

Raúl Rodríguez,Argentina,Boxing,November 26 1915

Gamal El-Din Sabri,Egypt,Basketball,June 21 1915

Pedro Simão,Brazil,Sport shooting,August 16 1915

Hiroshi Tanaka,Japan,Athletics,June 29 1915

Fidel Tricánico,Uruguay,Boxing,January 21 1915

Jaime Ucar,Uruguayl,Fencing,September 24 1915

Johanna Vancura,Austria,Athletics,July 20 1915

Sadako Yamamoto,Japan,Athletics,July 14 1915

Günther Zobernig,Austria,Swimming,December 5 1915

[/table]

Khushi Ram represented India in the gymnastics tournament at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and was still alive at an Olympic reunion in October 2003.

1916

[table]

Name,Nation,Sport,Birthday

Arno Franzen,Brazil,Rowing,January 14 1916

Khushi Ram,India,Gymnastics,January 15 1916

José Roger,Argentina,Sport shooting,January 20 1916

Abderrahman Sebti,Morocco,Fencing,January 9 1916

[/table]

For our next entry, we will be looking into the non-starter and demonstration event Olympians that we skipped in the last two posts. We hope that you will join us!