Athletes Deaths Thread

[Nickyc707 382]

3 hours ago, hckosice said:

Dana Zatopkova (97)   1952 Javelin Throw Gold

 

At the same games in Helsinki her husband Emil Zatopek won 3 Gold medals in 5000m, 10000m and Marathon

 

btw fun fact, they both won gold medals at the same day, the 24th July 1952 Emil won the 5000m and few minutes later his wife Dana won the W Javelin

A great athlete who competed at four Olympic Games. Apart from her gold medal in 1952 she was 7th in 1948, 4th in 1956 and then - just a few weeks before her 38th birthday - she won silver in Rome in 1960. In 1958 she became the oldest woman to break an outdoor athletic world record an achievement which she holds to this day.

 

Her husband Emil Zatopek is considered by some to be the greatest runner of all time. After winning gold and silver in 1948, he set a record that will surely never be equalled of winning the 5k, 10k and marathon at the same Games. What makes it even more incredible is that he ran four races - there was a semi-final in the 5k - in just eight days! Difficult not to be in complete awe of such an achievement.

 

R.I.P.

[hckošice 14,822]

Chris Reed Figure Skating, PyeongChang 2018 Olympian dies of heart attack at 30

 

RIP

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2020/03/17/figure-skating/retired-ice-dancer-chris-reed-dies-heart-attack-age-30/

[NearPup 3,045]

Chris Reed, a three time Olympian in ice dancing (2010 and 2014 with his sister Cathy Reed, and 2018 with Kana Muramoto) died suddenly from a heart attack at age 30.

[hckošice 14,822]

Vladimir Zabrodsky   (97) Ice Hockey and Tennis

 

 

Arguably one of the best all times player. inaugural member of the IIHF Hall of Fame in 1997.

 

Ice Hockey:

2x Olympian -  1948 (Silver) and 1956

(in the early 50s he couldn´t play for the national team because of the Communist party after The Communist government suspected players of trying to defect during the tournament in London 1950 and pulled the team from competition. Most players were charged and convicted of treason and sentenced to lengthy jail terms. Zabrodsky was the only one who wasn’t. Instead, he was merely banned from the national team for a period of time.) 

 

2x World Champion

1947 (best player of the tournament, He scored 12 goals in a single game, in a 24-0 win over Belgium (including a record-tying five in the third period), and eight more in a 23-1 win over Romania.) and 1949

+ 1 Silver 1948 + 1 Bronze in 1955)

 

Tennis:

Davis Cup record 5W-5L in Singles and Doubles (1948, 1955 and 1956)

 

Zabrodsky defected to Sweden in 1965 under dire and dramatic circumstances. Using fake passports, he managed to escape with his family through Hungary, Yugoslavia, and on to his brother in Switzerland. Oldrich had managed to leave and play the last years of his career in Lausanne.

Vladimir made his way to Stockholm and lived there the rest of his life. He coached club teams Leksand, Djurgarden, and Rogle between 1965 and 1971, after which he returned to tennis as a coach.

 

[heywoodu 15,135]

No Olympic athlete, but since I doubt non-Olympic athletes who die should have an own thread (or not be mentioned at all), here it is. Croatian former kickboxer Branko Cikatic has died. He was the very first winner of the prestigious and sadly defunct K-1 World Grand Prix, with an awesome knockout of Ernesto Hoost (who fell down to the floor stiff as a board) in the final. He also coached, among others, combat sports great Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic after his own active career.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branko_Cikatić

Edited March 24, 2020 by heywoodu

[Olympian1010 7,971]

I was just surfing the OCA website and saw some sad news. Iranian weightlifter Daniel Gevargiznejad (1970 Asian Games silver-medalist, 1968 Olympics participant) passed away. I didn’t say if Covid-19 was the cause or not.

[heywoodu 15,135]

Petra Hillenius ( ), who swam at the 1984 Olympics as a 16-year old. She died aged 52 after suffering from motor neurone disease.

[Nickyc707 382]

Deaths of Olympians in March.

 

 Robert Shavlakadze, 86 - Athletics (1×G)

 Levan Moseshvili, 79 - Basketball (1×S)

Geza Uto, 90 - Rowing

 Tatyana Prorochenko, 67 - Athletics (1×G, 1×S)

 Jozef Gyuricza, 86 - Fencing (1×B)

 Wolfgang Hofmann, 78 - Judo (1×S)

 Kevin Bacon, 87 - Equestrian

 Dana Zatopkova, 97 - Athletics (1×G, 1×S)

 Henry Smith, 64 - Athletics

 Chris Reed, 30 - Figure skating

 Phil Olsen, 63 - Athletics

 Aarne Kainlauri, 104 - Athletics

 Mohammad Ami-Tehrani, 84 - Weightlifting

 Malcolm Yardley, 79 - Athletics

 Tadashi Kato, 85 - Cycling

 Edi Ziegler, 90 - Cycling (1×B)

 Vladimir Zabrodsky, 97 - Ice Hockey (1×S)

 Borislav Stankovic, 94 - Administrator 

 Singaram Balasingam, 72 - Hockey

 Behrouz Rahbar, 74 - Cycling

 Jack Henn, 79 - Volleyball

 John Davies, 90 - Swimming (1×G)

 Daniel Gevargiz, 79 - Weightlifting

 Petra Hillenius, 52 - Swimming

 Pearson Jordan, 69 - Athletics

 Kwasi Owusu, 72 - Football

 Daniel Yuste, 75 - Cycling

Ivo Mahlknecht, 80 - Alpine skiing

 

And two late reported deaths from February.

 

 Guillermo Sola, 90 - Athletics

 Balbir Singh Kullar, 77 - Hockey (1×B)

 

I believe March has seen the first death of an Olympian attributed to Cofid-19 following the passing of former Spanish cyclist Daniel Yuste yesterday. We will be fortunate if he is the last.

 

On a more positive note more than seventy Olympians have lived to be centenarians. Aarne Kainlauri who died in March aged 104 was the third Finn to achieve that mark. The longest lived Olympian was American shooter Walter Walsh (1907-2014) who died five days short of his 107th birthday. The oldest living Olympian is another American John Lysak (born 16/8/1914) who competed in flat water canoeing at the 1936 Games in Berlin.

 

A number of the other Olympians who died last month have already been discussed earlier in this thread including the great Czech athlete Dana Zatopkova. Among the others who have passed away in March were John Davies of Australia who won a gold medal in the 200m breaststroke at the 1952 Games and Robert Shavlakadze of the former Soviet Union who was the Olympic champion in the high jump in Rome in 1960.

 

Wolfgang Hoffman of the United Team of Germany competed in the first Olympic judo tournament in Tokyo in 1964 winning a silver medal. There were only four classes at this first outing for the sport and all were for men in the days before the IOC gave any thought to equality. Japan won three of the four golds with the Netherlands winning the other.

 

Finally I have included the administrator Borislav Stankovic who although both a player and coach never competed at an Olympic Games. He did serve on the Yugoslav NOC and the IOC, but it was as Secretary General of FIBA between 1976 and 2002 that he had most influence. Among other things he changed the rules to enable professional players from the NBA to compete at the Olympics bringing about the arrival of the USA's so-called "Dream Teams" at the Games.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Nickyc707

[Olympian1010 7,971]

@Nickyc707 I believe the Barbadian was the first Olympian to die from Covid-19. I think more than a few already have...

[Nickyc707 382]

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

@Nickyc707 I believe the Barbadian was the first Olympian to die from Covid-19. I think more than a few already have...

That may well be correct although Yuste is the first one I've seen that definitively attributes death to the Coronavirus. I'm sure there are going to be a lot of people both in and out of the sporting world who are going to die from Cofid-19 without it necessarily being identified as the cause of death, particularly among the elderly. As you say it would be surprising if some of the other deaths among Olympians over the past few months haven't been down to the virus.