Today we have the same two milestone birthdays among the Oldest Olympians as last year so, as usual, we are combining them into a single blog post rather than choosing between them!

First, we are wishing a happy 95^th birthday to Tan Liong Houw, the oldest living Indonesian Olympian! Tan represented his country in the football tournament at the 1956 Melbourne Games, where he was eliminated in the quarterfinals. He also represented Indonesia at three editions of the Asian Games, winning bronze in 1958.

Next, we want to wish a happy 94^rd birthday to Japanese gymnast Takashi Ono! Ono represented his country in four consecutive editions of the Games, from 1952 through 1964, winning a total of 13 medals, five of which were gold. He won an additional seven medals at the World Championships between 1958 and 1962, two of which were gold. His wife Kiyoko also won an Olympic gymnastics bronze medal, in the team all-around in 1964. Ono is now the oldest living Japanese Olympic champion.

Finally, Oldest Olympians is saddened to learn that Irish track athlete Maeve Kyle, born October 6, 1928, died July 23 at the age of 96. Kyle represented her country at three consecutive editions of the Games, 1956, 1960, and 1964, becoming Ireland’s first female representative in track and field. Her best results came in 1964, when reached the semifinals of both the 400 and 800 metres events. She ended her career in 1966 by winning a bronze medal at that year’s European Indoor Athletics Championships in the 400 metres, and she later became a distinguished coach.

At the time of her death, Kyle was the oldest living Irish Olympian. That distinction now goes to sailor Harry Byrne, born July 2, 1929. Byrne represented his country in the Dragon class at the 1972 Munich Games, where his crew placed 16th. He also competed in that year’s World Championships, as well as a host of other tournaments during the 1970s. By career, he worked in the brewing industry.

Today Oldest Olympians has three milestone birthdays to celebrate, so we are going to cover them all in a single blog post!

(Tattersall, pictured at Horizon Yacht Charters)

First, we want to wish a happy 95^th birthday today to sailor Robin Tattersall! Tattersall represented the British Virgin Islands in two editions of the Soling class tournament, placing 21st in 1984 and 17th in 1992. He was the oldest sailing competitor at the latter Games and is now the oldest living survivor of that edition, in addition to being the oldest living competitor for his nation overall. By career he was a surgeon, working for the government until 1973, after which he founded his own clinic. During the 1950s, he had a career as a model and in 2001 he was awarded an OBE for his services to medicine. He has continued to sail and run marathons into his 80s.

Next, we are wishing Monegasque sport shooter Gilbert Scorsolio a happy 93^rd birthday today! Scorsolio represented his country in the small-bore rifle three positions, 50 meters and prone, 50 meters events at the 1960 and 1968 Summer Olympics respectively, where he placed joint-61st and 85th respectively. By career, he was in the real estate business and he is now the oldest living Monegasque Olympian.

(Singh Dhillon, seated second from the left, at Sikhs in Hockey)

Finally, we have a happy 90^th birthday wish for Joginder Singh Dhillon! Singh Dillon was a reserve with the Kenyan field hockey team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, but did not see any playing time. He had a lengthy domestic career, however, and is the oldest living member of a Kenyan delegation to the Olympics.

For the second time in a row, we have two milestone birthdays to celebrate so, as usual, we are covering them both in a blog entry!

First, we want to wish a happy 99th birthday to Hyacinth Walters, the oldest living Jamaican Olympian! Walters represented her country in the 100 and 200 metres track events at the 1952 Helsinki Games, but was eliminated in the first round of both. She had much more success at the Central American and Caribbean Games, winning seven medals, three of which were gold, between 1946 and 1954. She later became a teacher and now resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Second, we want to wish a happy 97^th birthday to Hans Andersson-Tvilling, the oldest living Olympic ice hockey medalist! Andersson-Tvilling won bronze for his country at the 1952 Oslo Games and just missed a second medal in 1956 after Sweden lost the bronze medal match to Canada. He won the World Championships in 1953, also taking silver in in 1951, and captured European Championship titles in 1951 and 1953, in addition to bronze in 1955. Domestically, he was a four-time national Swedish champion with Djurgårdens IF. His twin brother Stig had a similar record in the sport, including the Olympic bronze.

Today on Oldest Olympians we have two milestone birthdays to celebrate so, as usual, we are covering them both in a blog entry!

(Cheng Chi-Sen at Chineseoverseas.org)

First we are wishing Taiwanese sport shooter Cheng Chi-Sen a happy 99^th birthday! Cheng represented his country in the free pistol, 50 metres events at the 1968 Mexico City Games, where he placed 56^th. A police officer by career, he also competed at the 1966 Asian Games and later moved to San Francisco, where he ran a catering business. He is now the oldest survivor of the 1968 Summer Olympics!

(Akın Altıok from a Youtube video)

Next, we are wishing Akın Altıok a happy 93^rd birthday as the oldest living Turkish Olympian! Altıok represented his country in the triple jump at the 1952 Helsinki Games, where he was eliminated in the qualifying round. One year earlier, he had won that event at the 1951 Mediterranean Games.

(Lies Bonnier)

Additionally, as an update, we want to thank the reader who solved the Olympic mystery of Korean track athlete Sim Bok-seok. From knowing nothing about him, there is now a relatively detailed Wikipedia page on him here. Also, thanks to Connor Mah’s research, we learned that Lies Bonnier, born July 8, 1925, who we last heard from in 2012, died August 22, 2021 in Gooise Meren, at the age of 96. Finally, thanks to Ralf Regnitter, we now know that the gliding demonstration event competitor “Gerbrecht”, who we had listed as a theoretical survivor of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, was Ernst Gerbrecht, born December 28, 1890, who is therefore certain to be deceased.

Several months ago we noted the death of French track and field athlete Yvonne Chabot-Curtet, born May 28, 1920, who was, to the best of our knowledge, the oldest living Olympian when she died on February 21. There are just under 2700 Olympians, non-starters, and demonstration event competitors born between 1915 and 1935 for whom we have no confirmation on whether they are alive or deceased, but today we want to focus on the 74 Olympians who would be older than Yvonne Chabot-Curtet if they were still alive.

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 105 and 109 would have 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 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.

As mentioned in a previous post, the sole art competitor that meets the criteria, South African painter Ann Graham, was born September 22, 1915. Additionally, two non-starters, Egyptian footballer Hussein Ezzat and Japanese field hockey player Yasuo Ueno, were born in 1915. All 1915-born Olympians competed in 1936 Berlin Games and are thus potential survivors of the prewar Olympics as discussed in a previous post

(Junko Nishida represented Japan in the high jump)

1915

Name	Country	Event	Birthday
Hiroshi Matsunobu	Japan	Gymnastics	October 15, 1915
Spyridon Mavrogiorgos	Greece	Swimming	1915
Mitsuo Mizutani	Japan	Wrestling	October 5, 1915
Uichi Munakata	Japan	Basketball	November 26, 1915
Junko Nishida	Japan	Athletics	November 3, 1915
Konstantinos Pantazis	Greece	Athletics	1915
Sadako Yamamoto	Japan	Athletics	July 14, 1915

Japanese 1964 kendo demonstration competitor Minoru Kino was born in 1915 or 1916, while 1948 Korean football reserve Cha Sun-Jong and 1936 Japanese field hockey reserve Satoshi Muraoka were born in 1916.

(Saleh Mohamed, silver medalist for Egypt in featherweight weightlifting in 1936)

1916

Name	Country	Year	Event	Birthday
Ricardo Bralo	Argentina	1948	Athletics	August 28, 1916
Yoichi Endo	Japan	1936	Rowing	March 9, 1916
Tatsuo Ichikawa	Japan	1936	Ice hockey	February 11, 1916
Masatatsu Kitazawa	Japan	1936	Ice hockey	April 29, 1916
Fusako Kono	Japan	1936	Diving	January 22, 1916
Aziz Malik	Pakistan	1948, 1952, 1956	Field hockey	April 16, 1916
Daniel Sande	Argentina	1948, 1952, 1960	Fencing	August 25, 1916
Saw Hardy	Myanmar	1948	Boxing	1916
Saleh Mohamed	Egypt	1936	Weightlifting	June 24, 1916
Borbála Sóthy	Hungary	1936	Swimming	December 21, 1916
Koichi Wada	Japan	1936	Water polo	July 25, 1916
Takehiko Yanagi	Japan	1936	Field hockey	March 28, 1916
Kenshichi Yokoyama	Japan	1936	Basketball	September 22, 1916

Japan had two kendo competitors from the 1964 Tokyo Games that were born in either 1916 or 1917: Kotaro Oshima and Sosaku Yamashita.

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

1917

Name	Country	Year	Event	Birthday
Jehangoo Amin	India	1948	Cycling	1917
Richardos Brousalis	Greece	1936, 1948	Swimming, water polo	1917
Horacio Campi	Argentina	1952	Sailing	November 26, 1917
Alfredo Carlomagno	Argentina	1936	Boxing	September 26, 1917
Helio Castro	El Salvador	1968	Sport shooting	October 20, 1917
Chang Ri-Jin	Japan, Korea	1936, 1948	Basketball	October 28, 1917
Gin Gang-Hwan	Korea	1948	Athletics	January 7, 1917
Kosta Hakim	Egypt	1936	Boxing	April 17, 1917
Vangelis Kouvelis	Greece	1948	Cycling	1917
Lie Eng Soei	Indonesia	1960	Sailing	May 15, 1917
Qadri Mahmud	Egypt	1936	Swimming	October 8, 1917
Sajiro Miyama	Japan	1936	Boxing	January 20, 1917
Gurnam Singh	India	1948	Athletics	1917
Catherine Stevens	Belgium	1936	Athletics	August 7, 1917
Noboru Ueno	Japan	1936	Athletics	January 8, 1917
Scylla Venâncio	Brazil	1936	Swimming	May 9, 1917
Jorge Vidal	Argentina	1948	Gymnastics	c.1917
Taichi Yamada	Japan	1936	Rowing	February 20, 1917
Misao Yokota	Japan	1932	Swimming	February 3, 1917
Bouchaib Zeroual	Morocco	1960	Sport shooting	1917

Non-starter Guilherme Rodrigues, a reserve with the 1948 Brazilian basketball squad, was born August 26, 1918.

(Ahmed Zahur Khan represented Pakistan in two track and field events at the 1948 London Games and carried the flag in the opening ceremony)

1918

Name	Country	Year	Event	Birthday
Leopoldo Briola	Argentina	1948	Weightlifting	December 23, 1918
Guillermo Canciani	Argentina	1936	Sport shooting	November 18, 1918
Souren Chowdhury	India	1952	Sport shooting	July 25, 1918
Kim Won-Gwon	Korea	1948	Athletics	December 13, 1918
Giuseppe Molinari	Italy	1956	Equestrian	1918
Chhota Singh	India	1948	Athletics	1918
Daniel Trujillo	Venezuela	1968	Sailing	May 24, 1918
Yap Pow Thong	Malaysia	1964	Sport shooting	November 11, 1918
Ahmed Zahur Khan	Pakistan	1948	Athletics	1918
Bram Zanella	Venezuela	1960	Sport shooting	September 27, 1918

(Gudrun Grömer represented Austria in the diving tournament at the 1948 London Games)

1919

Name	Country	Year	Event	Birthday
Angela Anderes	Switzerland	1936	Figure skating	July 10, 1919
Germán Briceño	Venezuela	1956	Sport shooting	August 13, 1919
Mahmoud Fawzy	Egypt	1952	Wrestling	October 10, 1919
Gudrun Grömer	Austria	1948	Diving	November 7, 1919
Günter Heine	Germany	1952	Water polo	September 8, 1919
Min Byeong-seon	Korea	1952	Equestrian	1919
Ítalo Sartori	Argentina	1948	Rowing	November 29, 1919
Rei Takemura	Japan	1936	Swimming	April 29, 1919
Alexandros Vouxinos	Greece	1952, 1956	Alpine skiing	November 23, 1919

Kurakichi Chatani, a reserve team foil fencer for Japan at the 1960 Rome Games, was born January 11, 1920. Hideo Ichikawa, who was a reserve for Japan in field hockey at the same edition, was born February 23, 1920.

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

1920

Name	Country	Year	Event	Birthday
Minna Blüml	Germany	1964	Luge	May 17, 1920
Yukio Inokuma	Japan	1952, 1956, 1960	Sport shooting	January 2, 1920
Manuel Solís	Mexico	1948	Cycling	May 10, 1920
John Stuart	Canada	1948	Weightlifting	January 24, 1920

In a future entry, we will be looking into those Olympians who may still be alive and were born between Yvonne Chabot-Curtet and the current oldest living Olympian, Rhoda Wurtele. We hope that you will join us!