Today on Oldest Olympians, we wanted to look at Italy’s participation at the 1928 St. Moritz Olympics. Specifically, there are only four competitors for whom we lack biographical data, all of whom competed in the four/five bobsleigh team that placed 21^st overall. Of the five Italians, we have full data for only one: Giuseppe Crivelli.

(The 1928 St. Mortiz bobsleigh track)

For the remaining four, we have very little information to go on. For example, Giancarlo Morpurgo’s surname is often misspelled “Morpugo” and he is sometimes referred to as a Baron, but there is nothing else we can find to indicate his true identity. Names might be an issue overall, as Carlo Sem, from Turin, might be a pseudonym. About the other two, Luigi Cerutti and Piero Marchetti, we know nothing at all.

Since this is such a short blog entry, we wanted to introduce a few additional Italian Olympic mysteries. Two of them are art competitors from the 1936 Berlin Games: Piero Fervelli and Guglielmo Giuliani. Fervelli was a painter who entered an unknown painting event with the work “Sciatore 117” (Skier 117). Domestically, he was better known as a mosaic artist, but we do not have any additional biographical information on him. About Giuliani, who entered the architecture competition with “Cabina per cronometristi” (Cabin for timekeepers), we know nothing at all. A third mysterious competitor was an individual that we know only as “Beselli”, who took part in the gliding demonstration event at the same Games.

Finally, as an update to the 1928 St. Moritz bobsleigh competition, we previously noted Horacio Iglesias of Argentina as one of the mysterious competitors. Thanks to Hernán Macchiavello, we have learned that he was Horacio Alfredo Iglesias Baseil, born January 1, 1903 in Buenos Aires, although we do not have a date of death. That is what we have for today, but we hope that you will join us for a new topic next week!

Today on Oldest Olympians, we had planned to feature Gabriel Reymond, the oldest survivor of the 1960 Rome Olympics, on the occasion of his 100^th birthday. Reymond competed in two editions of the Olympic Games, finishing ninth in the 10 kilometer walk in 1952 and being disqualified in the 20 kilometer walk in 1960. He also competed at those events at the 1954 and 1958 European Championships respectively, finishing sixth and eighth.

(Gabriel Reymond’s obituary)

Unfortunately, we just learned that Reymond died on October 20, 2021 at the age of 98. Normally we would not feature someone who died this long ago but, given the circumstances, we felt it appropriate to provide an update. This news means that Renyldo Ferreira, born June 29, 1923, who represented Brazil in four editions of the Olympic equestrian tournament from 1948 through 1960, is the oldest survivor of the Rome Games.

(Julienne Boudewijns)

While we are writing a blog, we also wanted to provide a few updates to previous Olympic mysteries. First, we learned that the Franz Wenninger who died August 1, 1996 was the water polo player who represented Austria at the 1936 Berlin Games. Similarly, thanks to Connor Mah, we have confirmed that the Hugo Philipp who died in November 1970 was the Austrian Olympic fencer who competed in 1924, and the Walter Niederle who died November 28, 1962 was the 1948 Austrian field hockey player. Conversely, the Julienne Boudewijns who died on March 12, 2014 was not the Olympian – the Julienne Boudewijns who represented Belgium in the gymnastics tournament in 1948 actually died February 27, 1995.

Finally, in more positive news, Ralf Regnitter was able to German rower Klaus von Fersen, born March 29, 1931, was still alive, thus providing an update from 2012. We have a few more updates, but will stop here for now as to not overwhelm. We hope you will join us for the next blog entry!

A few days ago we compiled a list of Olympians who may still be alive and were born between the recently deceased Félix Sienra, the longest-lived Olympian, and the current oldest living Olympian, Yvonne Chabot-Curtet. We now want to add to that list by noting the 20 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 shown by the example of Dutch 1932 athletics alternate Mien Schopman-Klaver, who died at the age of 107, 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, but we cannot confirm it to be the case.

Bruno Schneider, who did not start for Austria in the 800 and 1500 metres track events.

Now that we have finally caught up on this topic, we will be bringing you something new and different in the coming days. We hope that you will join us!

Today on Oldest Olympians, we are following up on an earlier post by looking into those Olympians who may still be alive and were born between the recently deceased Félix Sienra, the longest-lived Olympian, and the current oldest living Olympian, Yvonne Chabot-Curtet. As a reminder, noting these individuals does not represent any belief on the part of Oldest Olympians that these athletes are still alive; we simply cannot confirm that they are deceased. 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 and sometimes being older than Chabot-Curtet’s current age. 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.

Hernando Navarrete represented Colombia in the 5000 metres track event at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

1916

Scylla Venâncio represented Brazil in two swimming events at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

1917

Ilona Szikora represented Hungary in the discus throw at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

1918

1919

Gudrun Grömer represented Austria in the diving tournament at the 1948 London Olympics.

Yukio Inokuma represented Japan in four rifle shooting events across three editions of the Games: 1952, 1956, and 1960.

1920

Next time on Oldest Olympians, we will take a look at the non-starters and demonstration event competitors that meet the criteria for this list. We hope that you will join us!