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 99th birthday! Cheng represented his country in the free pistol, 50 metres events at the 1968 Mexico City Games, where he placed 56th. 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 93rd 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.