Athletes Deaths Thread

[Nickyc707 382]

Deaths of Olympians in November.

 

 Don McDermott, 90 - Speed skating (1×S)

 Yalcin Granit, 88 - Basketball

 Matti Laakso, 79 - Wrestling

 Anne Covell, 70 - Athletics

 Taymi Chappe, 52 - Fencing

 Gennady Bukharin, 91 - Canoe sprint (2×B)

 Abdul Rashid, 73 - Hockey (1×G, 1×S, 1×B)

 Leonid Osipov, 77 - Water Polo (1×G, 1×S, 1×B)

 Barbara McAuley, 91 - Diving

 Sakari Paasonen, 85 - Shooting

 June Foulds, 86 - Athletics (1×S, 1×B)

 Willie Smith, 64 - Athletics (1×G)

 Heidar Shonjani, 74 - Swimming & Water polo

 Mohammed Bakar, 75 - Football

 Shkelqim Troplini, 54 - Wrestling

 John Kinsela, 70 - Wrestling

 Virginia Bonci, 71 - Athletics

 Fernando Atzori, 78 - Boxing (1×G)

 Amir Yavari, 88 - Boxing

 Gunther Pfaff, 81 - Canoe sprint (1×B)

 Giuliana Minuzzo, 88 - Alpine skiing (2×B)

 Jorge Llopart, 68 - Athletics (1×S)

 Boris Gurevich, 83 - Wrestling (1×G)

 Attila Horvath, 53 - Athletics

 Peter Florjancic, 101 - Ski jumping

 Osmo Ala-Honkola, 81 - Shooting

 Egidio Cosentino, 93 - Hockey

 Jagmohan Singh, 88 - Athletics

 Walt Davis, 89 - Athletics (1×G)

 Eitaro Okano, 90 - Athletics

 Anneliese Schuh-Proxauf, 98 - Alpine skiing

 Resit Karabacak, 66 - Wrestling

 Helen Morgan, 54 - Hockey (1×B)

 Hannu Lahtinen, 60 - Wrestling

 Jacques Deprez, 82 - Athletics

 Ernesto Canto, 61 - Athletics (1×G)

 Jens Sorensen, 79 - Cycling

 Billy Evans, 88 - Basketball (1×G)

 Doris de Agostini, 62 - Alpine skiing

 Anwar Aziz Chaudhry, 89 - Swimming

 Jozef Rysula, 81 - Cross-country skiing

 Mohammad Khadem, 85 - Wrestling

 Peter Lichtner-Hoyer, 93 - Equestrian & Modern pentathlon

 Yasil Yakusha, 62 - Rowing (1×S, 1×B)

 Vladimir Ivanov, 65 - Athletics

 Sir James Wolfensohn, 86 - Fencing

 Paul Nyman, 91 - Cycling

 Dimitar Largov, 84 - Football

 Kevin Burnham, 63 - Sailing (1×G, 1×B)

 Clifton Bertrand, 84 - Athletics

Tan Eng Bock, 84 - Water polo

 

[Olympian1010 8,301]

I saw him at a UCLA Athletics meet a few years ago. He was a legendary athlete.

[Nickyc707 382]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/55204070

 

Not an Olympian but legendary golf commentator Peter Alliss has died. At 89 he was still the BBC's chief commentator and last worked at November's US Masters. He was also a successful player on the European tour with numerous Ryder Cup appearances.

[PHI2019 326]

inuko Idogawa, one of the main members of Japan's gold medal-winning team in women's volleyball at the Tokyo 1964 Olympics, has died at the age of 81 following a brain haemorrhage. 

 

Tokyo 1964 Olympic champion Idogawa passes away at 81

 

[PHI2019 326]

Billy Evans, a member of the United States basketball team which won the gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, has died at the age of 88.

 

Olympic basketball gold medallist Evans dies aged 88

[Vojthas 949]

Professor Wojciech Zabłocki, one of the biggest Polish fencers and a great architect (he was the one to build the cycling track in Pruszków) has died recently. He was a widower after a famous Polish actress Alina Janowska.

 

With his dead we got to know that his teammate from 1950s, Jerzy Twardokens also died a few years ago. Twardokens emigrated to USA in 1958 and started using the name George, became a doctor at the University of Nevada, his daughter is Eva Twardokens, Olympic alpine skier who survived the plane crash last year.

 

The strangest thing about his death is that until he wasn't mentioned by one of the journalists as one of those "waiting for Zabłocki on a God's piste" yesterday. Apparently we've all thought it's a fake news as there was no news about it anywhere, not only from Polish or American media, but even on Olympedia, which is a strange thing for Olympian (Helsinki 1952) and World Championships medalist, being part of such a great team as him, Zabłocki or Pawłowski. But with a little bit of deeper research (which was needed after I asked for a dementi of that info and the editor-in-chief of the newspaper gave the date of 26th July 2015) we've found the confirmation - and @Dragon has already updated Olympedia thanks to that.

 

Still it sounds quite impossible that such a person's death remains unnoticed by the internet. And yet it shows the power of that certain journalist - he's celebrating 50 years of work for the biggest Polish sports newspaper this year and he is nominated to the most prestigious sport journalist award in Poland, which will be given tomorrow (it's the Bohdan Tomaszewski Award - you might know the patron from the official Olympic Movie from Moscow as he was shown commentating the gold of Malinowski in 3000 m steeplechase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xipsGMJDVpw - I personally refer to the journalists awarded with it as "The Order of the Garter of the Polish Sports Journalism" - and there's not a single one I doubt deserve it).

[PHI2019 326]

Arnie Robinson Jr, who won the gold medal in the long jump at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, has died at the age of 72.

 

Montreal 1976 long jump champion Robinson dies age 72

[phelps 8,728]

he never participated to the Olympic games, but I just can't stay away from reporting the death of Paolo (Pablito) Rossi, great striker of the Italian football and absolute hero of the 1982 World Cup triumph...

 

 

he was "only" 64, but cancer took him away from his family, friends and fans...

 

R.I.P. Paolino...

[mrv86 3,267]

Alberto Valdés Lacarra, Equestrian, 1980 Bronze medalist, Team Jumping

 

Son of Alberto Valdés Ramos, 1948 Gold medalist in the same event.

[Olympian1010 8,301]

Not an athlete, but a ceremony performer: https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1102389/supermodel-stella-tennant-dies-aged-50