Today we believe that the oldest living Romanian Olympian, Francisc Horvath, is celebrating his 97^th birthday. We featured Horvath in our Olympic medal mysteries series some time ago, as he won bronze in bantamweight, Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1956 Melbourne Games. In response, one reader provided a report that showed him alive in 2021, but others have pointed out sources claiming that he died in 1969 or 1980, and it remains unclear which is correct. Nonetheless, since there is a reasonable chance that he is still alive, we are wishing him a happy birthday!

(Gebhard Büchel’s obituary)

Additionally, while we are blogging, we wanted to thank Horacio Hernan Macchiavello, who solved some of our Olympic mysteries regarding Olympians possibly older than Rhoda Wurtele. Thanks to him, we now know that Argentinian sailor Boris Belada, born September 29, 1920, died in 2000, and his compatriot Óscar Cervo, a sport shooter born October 6, 1920, died in 1984. Chilean boxer Manuel Videla was born in 1920 and died July 23, 1993, while Argentinian field hockey player Carlos Mercali was born in 1921 and died June 10, 1976. Finally, thanks to another reader of the blog, we now know that Liechtenstein track and field athlete Gebhard Büchel was actually born July 22, 1921 and died May 31, 2011, before reaching the age of 90.