Today we have two milestone birthdays among the Oldest Olympians so, as usual, we are combining them into a single blog post rather than choosing between them!
First, we are wishing a happy 92nd birthday to Maria Golimowska, the oldest living Olympic volleyball medalist! Golimowska represented Poland in the tournament at the 1964 Tokyo Games, where she won a bronze medal. She also took bronze at the 1956 and 1962 World Championships and the 1958 European Championships, in addition to silver at the 1963 Europeans. Her international career lasted from 1955 through 1966, and she did not retire domestically until 1971.
We are also wishing a happy 92nd birthday to Leo Franciosi, the oldest living Sammarinese Olympian! Franciosi represented San Marino in four editions of the Olympic trap shooting tournament – 1960, 1968, 1976, 1980 – with a best finish of joint-21st in 1976. He was also the flagbearer for San Marino in the 1968 Opening Ceremony.
Dear Paul,
My name is Sophie, I work for a flemish archive in Belgium, ADVN – archive for national movements. (www.advn.be).
We are located in Antwerp in an old school building dating back to 1881. Our address: Lange Leemstraat 26 – 2018 Antwerp, you can look it up in google maps, that way you will get an idea of the beautiful facade :-). In 1920, the 7th Olympic Games took place in Antwerp. All the athletes were then housed in school buildings. In our school building, a former girls’ school, the British delegation slept for 5 weeks. On your website, in a post dated 21 December 2022, I see a photo of Connor Mah of the British gymnastics team. This photo was taken in our courtyard. I have already done a lot of research into the practical organisation of the Olympics including the accommodation of the athletes and especially the British team who slept in our buildings. Would there be any possibility of providing us with a high-resolution reproduction of this photo? Then I can print the photo and use it for my tours of our building. If you would like to know more about this research, please refer to my article from 2020: http://www.advn.eu/web/mededelingen/ADVN-Mededelingen-68.pdf. A mini photo exhibition was also put online during covid: https://indd.adobe.com/view/cce7f07e-71a9-476f-87a7-a8feb74a1b6c?fbclid=IwAR2_2FntGsBT8UHe7sqAAOghmTLs3WJMx_GIxu5_ZcyZbEfkjiSVovM-KyE. Here you can see that I had then recovered 1 photo of British athletes in the courtyard of the girls’ school. Later I also found another photo at Getty Images and one photo at the archives of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Such photos are rather scarce and hard to find.
In any case, it would be nice if we could get a copy of these, so I can dust off my story a bit more. Connor Mah may contact me anytime.
Warm regards,
Sophie