Today on Oldest Olympians, we had planned to feature Gabriel Reymond, the oldest survivor of the 1960 Rome Olympics, on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Reymond competed in two editions of the Olympic Games, finishing ninth in the 10 kilometer walk in 1952 and being disqualified in the 20 kilometer walk in 1960. He also competed at those events at the 1954 and 1958 European Championships respectively, finishing sixth and eighth.
Unfortunately, we just learned that Reymond died on October 20, 2021 at the age of 98. Normally we would not feature someone who died this long ago but, given the circumstances, we felt it appropriate to provide an update. This news means that Renyldo Ferreira, born June 29, 1923, who represented Brazil in four editions of the Olympic equestrian tournament from 1948 through 1960, is the oldest survivor of the Rome Games.
(Julienne Boudewijns)
While we are writing a blog, we also wanted to provide a few updates to previous Olympic mysteries. First, we learned that the Franz Wenninger who died August 1, 1996 was the water polo player who represented Austria at the 1936 Berlin Games. Similarly, thanks to Connor Mah, we have confirmed that the Hugo Philipp who died in November 1970 was the Austrian Olympic fencer who competed in 1924, and the Walter Niederle who died November 28, 1962 was the 1948 Austrian field hockey player. Conversely, the Julienne Boudewijns who died on March 12, 2014 was not the Olympian – the Julienne Boudewijns who represented Belgium in the gymnastics tournament in 1948 actually died February 27, 1995.
Finally, in more positive news, Ralf Regnitter was able to German rower Klaus von Fersen, born March 29, 1931, was still alive, thus providing an update from 2012. We have a few more updates, but will stop here for now as to not overwhelm. We hope you will join us for the next blog entry!
A few days ago we compiled a list of Olympians who may still be alive and were born between the recently deceased Félix Sienra, the longest-lived Olympian, and the current oldest living Olympian, Yvonne Chabot-Curtet. We now want to add to that list by noting the 20 non-starters and demonstration event competitors that fall into the same category. We do this not only for the sake of completing our previous post but because, as shown by the example of Dutch 1932 athletics alternate Mien Schopman-Klaver, who died at the age of 107, these competitors provide us with important links to Games that are disappearing from living memory and their achievements and sporting legacies are worth celebrating even if they did not actually get to compete at the Olympics.
As with our previous post, we suspect that all of these individuals are in fact deceased, but we cannot confirm it to be the case.
Bruno Schneider, who did not start for Austria in the 800 and 1500 metres track events.
[table]
Name,Birthday,Notes
Cha Sun-Jong,1916,Alternate on the 1948 Korean football squad
Antonio Fabriani,October 30 1916,Did not start for Italy in boxing’s featherweight division in 1936
Miron Fux,August 16 1916,Alternate on the 1936 Yugoslavian water polo team
Nicolae Gurau,1916,Alternate on the 1952 Romanian athletics team
Kaj Isaksen,September 3 1916, Alternate on the 1936 Danish coxless fours rowing squad
Minoru Kino,c. 1916,Participant in the 1964 kendo demonstration event
Blake H. M. Tedman,September 29 1916,Representative for Canada in the 1952 non-Olympic art competitions
Stella Espino,August 3 1917,Did not start for Panama in the 1960 individual foil fencing tournament
Ejnar Frydensberg Hansen,April 30 1917,Alternate on the 1936 Danish coxless fours rowing squad
Joseph Meyer,February 7 1917,Alternate with the Danish 1936 cycling team
Einar Nilsen,1917,Did not start for Denmark in the 1936 cycling road race
Kotaro Oshima,c. 1917,Participant in the 1964 kendo demonstration event
Sosaku Yamashita,c. 1917,Participant in the 1964 kendo demonstration event
Karel Basta,November 20 1918,Did not start for Czechoslovakia in boxing’s flyweight division in 1936
Johannes Duyn,March 19 1918,Alternate with the Danish 1936 cycling team
Guilherme Rodrigues,August 26 1918,Alternate on the 1948 Brazilian basketball team
Adalbert Balint,September 20 1919,Alternate on the 1960 Romanian water polo team
Bruno Schneider,October 26 1919,Alternate on the 1948 Austrian athletics team
Kurakichi Chatani,January 11 1920,Alternate on the 1960 Japanese foil fencing team
Hideo Ichikawa,February 23 1920,Alternate on the 1960 Japanese field hockey team
[/table]
Now that we have finally caught up on this topic, we will be bringing you something new and different in the coming days. We hope that you will join us!
Today on Oldest Olympians, we are following up on an earlier post by looking into those Olympians who may still be alive and were born between the recently deceased Félix Sienra, the longest-lived Olympian, and the current oldest living Olympian, Yvonne Chabot-Curtet. As a reminder, noting these individuals does not represent any belief on the part of Oldest Olympians that these athletes are still alive; we simply cannot confirm that they are deceased. 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 and sometimes being older than Chabot-Curtet’s current age. 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.
Hernando Navarrete represented Colombia in the 5000 metres track event at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Yukio Inokuma represented Japan in four rifle shooting events across three editions of the Games: 1952, 1956, and 1960.
1920
[table]
Name,Nation,Sport,Birthday
Minna Blüml,Germany,Luge,May 17 1920
Sayed Bulbul,Egypt,Football,March 23 1920
Yukio Inokuma,Japan,Sport shooting,Janaury 2 1920
Muhammad Khurram,Pakistan,Field hockey,March 1920
Manuel Solís,Mexico,Cycling,May 10 1920
John Stuart,Canada,Weightlifting,January 24 1920
[/table]
Next time on Oldest Olympians, we will take a look at the non-starters and demonstration event competitors that meet the criteria for this list. We hope that you will join us!
Today on Oldest Olympians we again want to highlight one of the centenarians on our list: American modern pentathlete Guy Troy, born March 15, 1923. Troy represented the United States at the 1952 Helsinki Games, finishing 14th out of 51 entrants individually and placing fourth with the American team, whom he also coached. Troy and the American team had had much better luck the previous year, when they took home the gold medal in the inaugural modern pentathlon tournament at the 1951 Pan American Games. By career he was a West Point graduate who served in the military, but for many years he also worked as an international event judge in modern pentathlon.
Guy Troy USMA 1946 Howitzer Photo p. 379
(Guy Troy)
Unfortunately, we learned that Troy died two days after his 100th birthday, on March 17, at the age of 100. This makes Hungary’s Gábor Benedek, born March 23, 1927 the oldest living Olympic modern pentathlete; he was already the oldest living medalist in the sport.
(Gábor Benedek)
After serving in World War II, Benedek made his Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games, where he won a silver medal in the individual event and, with the help of his countrymen, gold in the team tournament. He made a second appearance in 1956, where Hungary missed the podium in fourth and, individually, Benedek was sixth. He was also an individual World Champion in 1953 and a winner with the Hungarian team in 1954. For political reasons, he was banned from competing after 1959 and thus he took up coaching. He later emigrated to West Germany, where he remained until the end of the Cold War. He is now the last surviving member of his gold medal-winning team.
(Daniel Dagallier)
We also have an additional update on a modern pentathlete featured previously as an Olympic mystery. Lieutenant Pierre Coche represented France in this sport at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, where he placed 29th, but we otherwise knew nothing about him. As researcher Taavi Kalju discovered, this is because the Olympian was actually Paul Coche, born January 26, 1904 and died November 24, 1996. On the other hand, we learned that French Olympic medal mystery Daniel Dagallier, born June 11, 1926, who won a bronze medal in team épée fencing in 1956 and also competed in 1952, was alive as recently as 2018.
Today on Oldest Olympians we wanted to provide an update on Vasily Borisov, born December 12, 1922, who we believed to be the oldest living Olympian to have represented the Soviet Union, the oldest living Olympic sport shooting medalist, and the oldest survivor of the 1960 Rome Olympics. Borisov represented his nation in five events across two editions of the Games, 1956 and 1960, winning one medal of each color and coming in fourth in the other two events. He was a 22-time medalist at the World Championships, including 12 titles, and also found success at the European Championships. A military man by career, he later worked as a shooting coach.
(Vasily Borisov in 1954)
We had seen reports that Borisov had reached his 100th birthday and updated our tables accordingly. A new article, however, has revealed that Borisov actually died March 21, 2003 in Moscow, and that this had gone unreported previously. This makes Ennio Mattarelli, born August 5, 1928, who won the trap competition for Italy at the 1964 Tokyo Games, the oldest living Olympic sport shooting medalist, and Swiss track athlete Gabriel Reymond, born April 15, 1923, the oldest survivor of the 1960 Rome Games. The oldest living Soviet Olympian is now Yulen Uralov, born November 23, 1924, who fenced at the 1952 Helsinki Games.
(Pavel Kharin)
As for the oldest living Soviet medalist, that distinction now goes to Ninel Krutova, born January 3, 1926, who took bronze in platform diving at her third Olympics in 1960. The oldest living Soviet Olympic champion is Nikita Simonyan, born October 12, 1926, who was a member of the team that won the football tournament at the 1956 Melbourne Games. Finally, we received the sad news that Pavel Kharin, born June 8, 1927, who won gold and silver medals in sprint canoeing at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, died March 6 at the age of 95. He was the oldest living Olympic canoeing medalist, a distinction that now goes to Ferenc Mohácsi of Hungary, born October 25, 1929, who took bronze in the C-2 1000 event at the same Games.
The report announcing Borisov’s death mentioned that it has been difficult to verify information on many Soviet Olympians, even those who won medals, which is a phenomenon that we have experienced in our own research. For example, we have seen conflicting information about whether rower Yury Rogozov, born September 8, 1930, is alive. Others fall into the realm of what we have termed missing links; for example, swimmer Farid Dosayev, born March 6, 1933, is listed as having died on November 19, 2021 on the Russian Wikipedia, but with no source. Similarly, sailor Vyacheslav Tineyev, born May 1, 1933, is listed as having died on May 20, 2013 on the Russian Wikipedia, but again with no source.
Oldest Olympians will be travelling with limited internet connectivity for the next week so, rather than miss an update, we have decided to post a blog entry today that will cover one Olympian for every day that we suspect we will be absent (February 25 – March 3).
During that time, there is only one milestone birthday, but it is a particularly important one: Willi Büsing, the oldest living German Olympian, will be turning 102 on March 2! Büsing is the last surviving member of the German three-day eventing team that won a silver medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and he played a key role in this success, as he was the highest-ranked German in the individual event, placing third and taking the individual bronze medal. He also won a silver medal in the team event at the 1954 European Championships and later became involved in sports administration. Most notably, he acted as team coach and veterinarian at the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Summer Games. He now resides in his hometown of Jade and is also the oldest living Olympic equestrian.
For the remaining entries, we want to acknowledge some Olympians who have died in the past year. First, French modern pentathlete Christian Beauvalet, born December 18, 1929, died July 23, 2022 at the age of 93. Beauvalet represented his country at the 1960 Rome Games, placing 15th with the French team and 45th individually. He was the French national champion that year and later worked as a fencing instructor.
Next, Bulgarian gymnast Mincho Todorov, born December 26, 1931, died August 2, 2022 at the age of 90. Todorov represented his country in two editions of the Games, 1952 and 1956, with a best finish of joint-sixth in the floor exercise in the latter edition. He was also ninth with the Bulgarian team in 1952. After winning several national titles between 1948 and 1954, he moved to Mexico and spent the rest of his life there as a gymnastics coach and administrator.
Then, Finnish track athlete Aino Autio, born January 4, 1932, died November 17, 2022 at the age of 90. Autio represented her country in the 80 metres hurdles and the 4×100 metres relay at the 1952 Helsinki Games, but was eliminated in the first round of both events. The 1951 Finnish national champion in the former event, she later worked as a teacher.
Just at the end of 2022, French weightlifter Pierre Bouladou, born November 18, 1925, died December 29 at the age of 97. Bouladou represented his country in the middleweight tournament at the 1948 London Games, where he placed sixth. This did make him, however, the top-placed European in this event at the Olympics.
At the beginning of 2023, Greek rower Nikos Chatzigiakoumis, born in 1930, died on January 2 at the age of either 92 or 93. Chatzigiakoumis represented his country in the single sculls at the 1956 Melbourne Games, where he was eliminated in the round one repêchage. He eventually settled in Australia and competed in masters-level rowing tournaments.
Finally, Australian gymnast Bruce Sharp, born March 24, 1931, died January 12 at the age of 91. Sharp represented his country in the tournament at the 1956 Melbourne Games, where he was seventh in the team all-around and had a best individual finish of joint-28th in the horse vault.
The tables will not be updated during our absence, but we look forward to returning on March 4 to continue cover the Oldest Olympians! We hope that you will join us!
Today on Oldest Olympians we want to celebrate the birthday of Růžena Košťálová of Czechoslovakia, who we believe to be turning 99 as the oldest living Olympic canoeist. We have still not resolved our uncertainty from last year, however, as to whether or not that is actually the case.
Košťálová was one half of the silver medal-winning Czechoslovakian team in the Kayak Doubles, 500 metres event at the 1948 World Championships, which led to her selection to represent the country at that year’s Olympic Games in the Kayak Singles, 500 metres. Although she won her heat in the opening round, she finished fifth in the final. Having already won 12 national titles in the sport, she retired from active competition shortly thereafter and eventually moved to Switzerland with her family in 1968.
We based our belief that she is still alive on this 2020 document from the Czech Olympic Committee. A comprehensive 2021 work by František Kolář, however, Encyklopedie olympioniků. Čeští a českoslovenští sportovci na olympijských hrác, lists her, on page 178, as having died in January 2013. Both sources seem very reliable, and thus it is plausible that either are mistaken, so we have continued to list her as alive, although we cannot be entirely certain. Were Košťálová deceased, however, then Cees Koch of the Netherlands, born December 30, 1925, would be the oldest living Olympic canoeist.
We did, however, just receive an update on an Olympian that we have covered in the past: Mexican basketball player Fernando Rojas, born August 2, 1921, did not make it to the age of 100 – he died on December 26, 2016 at the age of 95. Additionally, judoka Aurelio Chu Yi, born January 31, 1929, whom we believed to be the oldest living Panamanian Olympian, actually died July 4, 1998 and the reports of his still being alive were incorrect. Finally, we have updates on two Olympic medal mysteries: Uruguayan bronze medal-winning basketball player Ramiro Cortés, born in 1931, died April 23, 1977, while German bronze medal-winning field hockey player Günther Brennecke died February 25, 2014.
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.
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!
One month into 2023, we wanted to share our yearly fast facts about the Oldest Olympians in the world, partially to continue our commitment to transparency in our research but mostly just for fun and to share some statistics!
(The oldest living Olympian, Yvonne Chabot-Curtet, born May 28, 1920)
As of today, our full list contains 2299 participants, non-starters, demonstration athletes, and art competitors born between 1913 and 1932 that could be living, 819 of which we believe to be living for certain. The former number is down from 2387 and the latter is up from 635 from the beginning of last year.
We also have 294 Olympians (down from 373 last year) who competed in the 1928, 1932, or 1936 Games, Winter and Summer, who have no date of birth but could be still living. It is worth reminding everyone that the vast majority of athletes that could be living are likely deceased.
(Iris Cummings-Critchell, the last known survivor of the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
As of the beginning of this month, we have 13 living Olympic centenarians, as seven died in 2022 and two in January 2023. We also know of one survivor from a pre-World War II Olympics: Iris Cummings, born December 21, 1920, who competed in the 200 metres breaststroke at the 1936 Berlin Games. If you have any suggestions of statistics or information that you would like to see added, please send us a message and we will be happy to include it in the next round!
In our last Oldest Olympians blog entry, we mentioned the case of several architects who entered the art competitions for the 1936 Berlin Olympics while representing Czechoslovakia. This made us realize that we have a handful more of Czechoslovakian art competitors from that year about whom we know little to nothing, so we wanted to take some time today to cover them in their own post.
(Václav Houdek)
First, there was another architecture entry, titled “Construction project for the grandstand of the ‘Sparta’ Athletic Club”, which was meant to expand the seating capacity at Letná Stadium in Prague, which had been built in 1917. Of the three submitters, we have full biographical information on Václav Houdek, who was known for his projects in Slovakia. The names of the other two submitters, Josef Bauer and Jaroslav Nedvěd, are relatively common, and we have not been able to learn more about them.
In the music, compositions for orchestra competition, František Koubek submitted a work titled “Vlastní silou – k vítězství” (“With your own strength to victory”), but we do not have any other information about him. In literature’s dramatic works category, meanwhile, Richard Augsten entered “Eternal Olympia”, which was a “festival play”. Augsten was a secondary school teacher who wrote stage plays, but we do not know his biographical data.
Additionally, in the literature, epic works, competition, we have the most mysterious Czechoslovakian art competitor of all: an individual known only by the name “Jerry” submitted “The Meaning and Essence of Sport”. With this being such a common first name, as well as potentially a surname, we have been unable to uncover any more about this entrant. In this regard he is much like the artist known only as “Chiffre”, who submitted “Sports in Music” to the instrumental and chamber music category, representing Yugoslavia.
Finally, we wanted to thank our readers once again for providing us with new information on some of our past Olympic mysteries. Ralf Regnitter was able to confirm that German cyclist Paul Maue is still alive, while Wikipedia user Pbk demonstrated that the Czechoslovakian Věra Drazdíková who died in 1983 was indeed in the Olympic gymnast. Finally, Connor Mah passed on the sad news that Anna Van Marcke, born April 18, 1924, who we had been listing for many years as the oldest living Belgian Olympian, actually died shortly after the last update we had in June 2012. This means that speed skating champion Micheline Lannoy has been the oldest living Belgian Olympian since 2021.
