Today on Oldest Olympians we have the same two milestone birthdays as the past three years, so we are again continuing our trend of covering both in a single blog post rather than choosing between them!
First, we want to wish a happy 96th birthday to Miguel Seijas, the oldest living Uruguayan Olympian! Seijas represented his country in the double sculls at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Games, winning bronze in the former and being eliminated in the round one repêchage in the latter.
Second, Chiharu Igaya is turning 95 as Japan’s oldest Olympic medalist! Igaya represented his country in nine alpine skiing events across three editions of the Games – 1952, 1956, and 1960 – and won a silver medal in the slalom in 1956. He also took bronze at the World Championships in that event in 1958. By career he worked in insurance, but also served in sport administration, most notably as a member of the IOC since 1982.
(Lee Sang-Cheol)
Finally, we want to thank the reader who found evidence that French track athlete Jocelyn Delecour, born January 2, 1935, who we covered in our last post, was still alive at his 90th birthday. On the opposite end, Connor Mah was able to confirm that the Lee Sang-Cheol who died in October 2018 was the Olympian who was born November 1, 1935 and represented South Korea in the marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics. He also discovered that track athlete Lee Yun-seok, who represented South Korea in two events in London in 1948, was born in 1924, and thus could still be living, even if it is unlikely. This is not true of Mah’s other athletics discovery, which was for Swiss athlete Ernst Günther, who competed in the 5000 metres at the London Games, and was apparently born in 1914.