In today’s blog, we wanted to provide a handful of updates about Olympians that we have covered in the past. Most importantly, however, we wanted to wish a happy belated birthday to Belgian figure skating champion Micheline Lannoy, who turned 96 yesterday! Derrick Bouchard, a volunteer researcher with the Kingston Branch of the Genealogical Society, assisted us in locating the son of Micheline Lannoy Macaulay, who was able to confirm that she was indeed still alive. This means that there are no remaining gold medal mysteries, so we greatly appreciate Derrick for the work he did in contacting the family!
(Micheline Lannoy)
On to the proper birthday post: Lannoy and her partner Pierre Baugniet were Belgian national champions in the pairs event from 1944 through 1947. In 1947 they took both the European and World Championships, and then followed that up with victories at the Worlds and the Olympics in 1948. Despite these impressive successes, the duo ended their careers after the Games and managed to maintain a low-profile thereafter. Lannoy later moved to Ontario, Canada and took the married name MacAulay. Now that we have confirmed that she is still alive, we can note that she is the sixth-oldest living Olympic champion and the third-oldest living Winter Olympic champion.
Additionally, we also wanted to share a bevy of updates from Connor Mah, who has done some excellent research in solving our Olympic mysteries: for starers, he was able to confirm that the obituary of the John F. K. Hinde who died May 31, 2017 was indeed the Olympian John Hinde, born October 3, 1928, who represented Great Britain in rowing at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Games. Similarly, he proved that the Frank William Daniels born August 21, 1928 who died April 9, 1990 was the American boxer who was an alternate in the middleweight division at the 1948 London Olympics. From our Australian Olympic mysteries, he also demonstrated that welterweight boxer Rusty Cook, born April 20, 1913, who fought as a welterweight at the 1936 Berlin Games, did in fact die on October 10, 1991.
Mah’s research, however, was not confined to confirming previously uncertain information. From the Australian Olympic mysteries, he located the death dates of two freestyle wrestlers: 1948 flyweight Bert Harris, born in 1916, died March 6, 1982, while 1952 welterweight Bev Scott, born September 30, 1914, died October 27, 1998. He also discovered that one of Scott’s opponents, Canadian Niaz “Nick” Mohammed, who was born January 29, 1926, died March 16, 2011. Finally, Mah located dates of death for two other Canadian Olympic mysteries: 1948 athletics bronze medalist Dianne Foster, born March 3, 1928, died January 4, 1999 and 1948 track cyclist Bill Hamilton, born in 1930, died November 23, 2017.
This is to say nothing of the individuals that Mah was able to confirm living, who we will feature in future Oldest Olympians posts. We want to express our extreme gratitude for his aid in solving so many of these Olympic mysteries!