Honoring the Oldest Living Olympic Athletes
The World Is Forgetting About These Olympians. This Project Is Immortalizing Them.
With the 2024 Olympics underway, it is fitting that the oldest living Olympian is a French former athlete. Yvonne Chabot-Curtet, age 104, proudly represented her country in long jump during the 1948 London and 1952 Helsinki games. Today, she tops the list of Oldest Living Olympians, an online database maintained by Paul Tchir, a sports history lecturer at San Diego State University.
Traditional media coverage of the Olympics often focuses on two themes: the relative youth of the athletes and their potential to bring home medals. For example, a recent Washington Post profile of American gymnast Hezly Rivera highlights several times that she’s only 16 years old, quotes team captain Simone Biles saying, “She can’t even drive,” and casually mentions how her teammates have collectively won 55 medals at the World Championships and the Olympics.
But Tchir’s project takes the opposite approach, spotlighting the careers and lives of past Olympic athletes regardless of their placement at the games. Take, for example, Iris Cummings, the oldest living American Olympic athlete, according to Tchir’s extensive spreadsheet. Cummings swam the 200-meter breaststroke in the 1936 Berlin Games. She then quit swimming competitively after (correctly) anticipating the cancellation of the 1940 Games, instead embarking on a long and distinguished career as an aviator. Some might dismiss Cummings’ placement in the 1936 games as unremarkable (she was eliminated in the first round), but Tchir continues to honor her achievements each year on his project’s Facebook page, celebrating her 103rd birthday in December.
The Oldest Living Olympians project is Tchir’s labor of love, dedicated to preserving the legacies of athletes who often fall out of the public eye after their competition days are over. Through vintage photographs and short biographical posts, the project shows how sports have evolved and how the athletes have led full lives after the games. At a time when both traditional media and Wikipedia may decline to cover these people, Tchir’s project ensures that they are part of the digital record.
From my latest column, “The World Is Forgetting About These Olympians. This Project Is Immortalizing Them”
My debut suspense novel, The Editors, will be released in just nine days. Already, this underdog thriller inspired by Wikipedia is making some waves.
I would love to share this milestone with you, whether that’s meeting in person at one of the scheduled book events, connecting virtually at the Wikimania conference, speaking with your book club, or appearing on your favorite podcast. If you have any ideas or opportunities, please drop me a note! I will also be tracking some of the early media coverage of the book here, so stay tuned for updates.
All the best,
Stephen