Being a little bit behind in the new year, today Oldest Olympians is covering a handful of Olympic mysteries for individuals born in 1935 for whom we have some suggestion of their death, but cannot confirm the information.
First is British cyclist Joseph McLean, born July 30, 1935. McLean represented his country in the team pursuit, 4,000 metres event at the 1960 Rome Games, where the British squad was eliminated in round one. He also competed at the World Championships and the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1962. After that, we have little information on his life and career, although an anonymous user on Wikipedia added a date of death of March 19, 2024 and place of death of South Africa to his page. It was removed, however, as being unsourced, and we have not seen anything to prove it.
Next is Australian diver Barry Holmes, born August 17, 1935. Holmes represented his country in the platform event at the 1956 and 1960 Summer Games, placing 22nd and 27th respectively. We do not know much else about his life or career, but an anonymous Wikipedia editor claimed that he was the Barry Richard Holmes listed in the NSW Probate Index who died December 12, 2012. Since his middle initial is R., this is possible, but we have seen no concrete proof to connect the two.
Then we have Soviet fencer Yury Ivanov, born some time in 1935. Ivanov represented his nation in the team foil event at the 1956 Melbourne Games, where the Soviets were eliminated in the semi-finals. Due to his relatively common name, it is difficult to find any additional information on him, although someone added a year of death of 2022 to his English Wikipedia page, which we cannot confirm.
Up next is Pakistani swimmer Muhammad Bashir, born May 15, 1935. Bashir represented his country in the 200 metres breaststroke event at the 1952 Helsinki Games, where he placed 38th. Like Ivanov, his common name makes it difficult to locate further information about him, and thus we cannot connect the grave of an individual with the same name and date of birth, who died July 21, 2022 in Ohio, to the Olympian.
We also have (West) German cyclist August Rieke, born May 26, 1935. Rieke represented a unified Germany in the sprint at the 1960 Rome Games, where he was eliminated in the quarter-finals. He won several national titles between 1959 and 1962, but never turned professional. We located the grave of an August Rieke, born in 1935 and died in 1995, who is buried in the same province of birth as the Olympian, but nothing to verify that this individual was the Olympian.
Finally, we are featuring Filipino wrestler Antonio T. Senosa, born November 18, 1935. Senosa represented his country as a featherweight at two editions of the Games, 1964 and 1968, in both categories at the former Olympics and in freestyle at the latter. An Antonio Senosa Tusaneza, born May 10, 1935, died January 18, 2006, which could align with the Olympian if our date of birth were incorrect, but we do not have the evidence to connect the two with certainty.
There are still many Olympic mysteries left to catch up on, but we will have to save those for another day. We hope you will join us!