Last year, Oldest Olympians spent three blog entries covering those Olympians for whom we last had evidence of being alive from 2013 and would remove from our tables at the end of the year if we could not find any additional evidence of their being alive. Although we received updates on many of those names, several others have just been removed: Carol Bedö, Enrique Guittens, Tomáš Bauer, Michihiro Ozawa, and Marian Herda. Moving on to this year’s task, our list of individuals from whom we last heard in 2014 is 17 names long, and thus we will again be covering them over multiple blog entries. Today, we will be looking at those Olympians who were born in the 1920s.
(Paul Laporte, pictured at Radio Canada)
Paul Laporte – Member of Canada’s sport shooting delegation to the 1976 Montreal Olympics
Paul Laporte, born May 9, 1928, represented Canada in the skeet shooting event at the 1976 Montreal Games, where he placed joint-56th. He was the 1973 World Champion in this event, but by career he ran the Rôtisserie Laurier in Montreal. He was mentioned as surviving his brother in a 2014 obituary, but since then we have not been able to confirm that he is still alive.
Otto Michtits – Member of Austria’s boxing delegation to the 1948 London Olympics
Otto Michtits, born June 20, 1928, represented Austria in the light-heavyweight division at the 1948 London Games, where he lost his bout in the first round. Although he was the national champion in 1948, 1950, and 1951, he never turned professional. If still alive, he would be the oldest living Olympic boxer, but we have not seen an update on him since an article from 2014.
Benny Schmidt – Denmark’s sole modern pentathlete the 1960 Rome Olympics
Benny Schmidt, born June 25, 1929, represented Denmark in the modern pentathlon at the 1960 Rome Games, where he placed 47th and was his nation’s flagbearer in the opening ceremony. He won several national titles across various sports in the 1950s and, by career, was a military officer. When we posted about him in 2023, we were provided evidence that he was still alive in 2014, but we have seen no updates since then.
This will be enough for today, but we hope that you will join us next time as we begin to investigate names that were born in the 1930s!
This thoughtful post about the last known living Olympians is really moving. I appreciate the care you put into these updates.