Recently we noted the death of Uruguayan sailor Félix Sienra, born January 21, 1916, who was, to the best of our knowledge, the oldest living (and longest-lived) Olympian when he died on January 30, 2023. As we have mentioned, however, there are over 2200 Olympians, non-starters, and demonstration event competitors born between 1913 and 1932 for whom we have no confirmation on whether they are alive or deceased. In addition, there are 293 individuals who participated in the Games in 1928, 1932, and 1936 for whom we have no information on their date, or even year, of birth. Today we want to focus on the 44 Olympians who would be older than Félix Sienra if they were still alive. Three of them were non-starters: Shigeo Takagi and Masuzo Maeda, born July 28, 1913 and June 29, 1914 respectively, who were reserves with Japan’s Olympic water polo squads, and Hussein Ezzat, born in 1915, who was a reserve with the Egyptian football team in 1936.

It should be noted that discussing these individuals in no way represents any belief on the part of Oldest Olympians that these athletes are still alive; we simply cannot confirm that they are deceased. In fact, we find it highly unlikely that any Olympian who is between the age of 107 and 109 would have escaped our attention completely. It remains, however, an important caveat and is always a possibility: language barriers, poor media coverage of older athletes, and desire for privacy from a generation when the Games were not as big as they are now all contribute to the chance that someone may have eluded our radar. In the past, several Olympic centenarians have reached that milestone with little public fanfare, sometimes not being revealed until their death. We feel, therefore, that it is important to share this list to make our research methods a little more public and subject to scrutiny, perhaps solving a case or two along the way.

Mie Muraoka represented Japan in the 4×100 metres track relay at the 1932 Los Angeles Games.

1913

[table]
Name,Nation,Sport,Birthday
Osamu Abe,Japan,Rowing,August 11 1913
Sayed Ali Atta,Afghanistan,Field hockey,August 25 1913
Mohamed Hassanein,Egypt,Swimming,1913
Daiji Kurauchi,Japan,Field hockey,1913
Isamu Mita,Japan,Rowing,March 25 1913
Amin Mohamed,Egypt,Boxing,November 15 1913
Zafar Ahmed Muhammad,Pakistan,Sport shooting,July 10 1913
Mie Muraoka,Japan,Athletics,March 23 1913
Takao Nakae,Japan,Basketball,April 30 1913
Chiyoto Nakano,Japan,Boxing,February 7 1913
Shusui Sekigawa,Japan,Rowing,May 13 1913
Chikara Shirasaka,Japan,Rowing,August 18 1913
[/table]

Zenjiro Watanabe represented Japan in figure skating’s singles event at the 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympics.

1914

[table]
Name,Nation,Sport,Birthday
Toyoyi Aihara,Japan,Athletics,January 7 1914
Yukie Arata,Japan,Swimming,October 25 1914
Jihei Furusho,Japan,Water polo,December 15 1914
Mitsue Ishizu,Japan,Athletics,April 16 1914
Masaru Kashiwahara,Japan,Rowing,October 30 1914
Masayasu Maeda,Japan,Basketball,March 10 1914
Sayed Masoud,Egypt,Weightlifting,November 15 1914
Iwao Masuda,Japan,Athletics,December 25 1914
Osamu Takechi,Japan,Field hockey, 1914
Kosei Tano,Japan,Water polo,January 22 1914
Anwar Tawfik,Egypt,Fencing,July 31 1914
Zenjiro Watanabe,Japan,Figure skating,February 11 1914
Hideichi Yoshioka,Japan,Wrestling,September 10 1914
[/table]

Jaime Ucar represented Uruguay in foil fencing at the 1948 London Olympics.

1915

[table]

Name,Nation,Sport,Birthday

Sayed Ali Babaci,Afghanistan,Field hockey,March 12 1915

Ali Erfan,Egypt,Wrestling,March 18 1915

Nélida Fullone,Argentina,Fencing,January 27 1915

Michihiro Ito,Japan,Field hockey,March 20 1915

Takeo Ito,Japan,Field hockey,January 5 1915

Torajiro Kataoka,Japan,Water polo,Febraury 7 1915

Hiroshi Matsunobu,Japan,Gymnastics,October 15 1915

Spyridon Mavrogiorgos,Greece,Swimming, 1915

Mitsuo Mizutani,Japan,Wrestling,October 5 1915

Hatsuko Morioka,Japan,Swimming,June 22 1915

Uichi Munakata,Japan,Basketball,November 26 1915

Junko Nishida,Japan,Athletics,November 3 1915

Konstantinos Pantazis,Greece,Athletics, 1915

Denise Parmentier,Belgium,Gymnastics,July 5 1915

Hiroshi Tanaka,Japan,Athletics,June 29 1915

Jaime Ucar,Uruguay,Fencing,September 24 1915

Sadako Yamamoto,Japan,Athletics,July 14 1915

[/table]

For our next entry, we will be looking into those Olympians who may still be alive and were born between Félix Sienra and the current oldest living Olympian, Yvonne Chabot-Curtet. We hope that you will join us!