Leon Štukelj

Leon Štukelj

Leon Štukelj in 1958 displaying a box of awards
Personal information
Born	(1898-11-12)12 November 1898 Novo Mesto, Austria-Hungary (current Slovenia)
Died	8 November 1999(1999-11-08) (aged 100) Maribor, Slovenia
Sport
Country	Yugoslavia
Sport	Men's artistic gymnastics
Medal record Men’s gymnastics Representing Yugoslavia Olympic Games 1924 Paris All-around 1924 Paris Horizontal bar 1928 Amsterdam Rings 1928 Amsterdam Team competition 1928 Amsterdam All-around 1936 Berlin Rings World Championships 1922 Ljubljana Parallel bars 1922 Ljubljana Horizontal bar 1922 Ljubljana Rings 1926 Lyon Horizontal bar 1926 Lyon Rings 1922 Ljubljana Pommel horse 1926 Lyon Parallel bars 1930 Luxembourg Horizontal bar

Leon Štukelj listen^ⓘ (12 November 1898 – 8 November 1999) was a Yugoslav gymnast of Slovene ethnicity, Olympic gold medalist and athlete.

He is a noted figure in Slovenian sporting history. Štukelj is one of the few Slovene athletes to have risen to the very top of his sport, where he remained right from the World Championships in Ljubljana in 1922 all the way to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, at which point he finished his competitive gymnastics career.

Štukelj competed at seven major international competitions and won a total of twenty medals: eight gold, six silver, and six bronze. At the Olympic Games alone he won six medals: two gold medals (counted for Yugoslavia) in Paris in 1924, one gold medal and two bronze in Amsterdam in 1928, and a silver medal in Berlin in 1936.

Biography

Štukelj was born in Novo Mesto, Austria-Hungary (now Slovenia).

In 1927 he completed his studies in law. Since the young age, he was an active member of the Slovenian Sokol athletic movement. After finishing his sports career he became a judge, first in his hometown Novo Mesto. Later he moved to Lenart, and then to Maribor, where he lived until his death. After World War II Štukelj was not a supporter of the newly formed Communist regime of Yugoslavia. It has been suggested that during World War Two, he took part in the Yugoslav royalist (Chetnik) movement, hostile to Tito's partisans, and maintained contacts with the British Special Operations Executive. For these reasons, he was suspicious to the new Communist regime. After the war, he was first imprisoned, then released but permanently disbarred from being a judge. He worked as a legal assistant for the rest of his career.

Štukelj was presented at the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXVI Olympiad in Atlanta in 1996 as then-oldest living Olympic gold medalist, where he shook hands with the President of the United States Bill Clinton. He also presented the medals to winners in the men's team competition.

His 100th birthday in 1998 was a major celebration in Slovenia. Štukelj still exercised regularly until even just before his death, only four days short of his 101st birthday. He is the longest living individual Olympic gold medalist.

Today a sports hall in Novo Mesto, mainly used by a local basketball team, is named after him, in addition to the University Sports Hall situated on the campus of the University of Maribor.

Hall of Fame

• (1997) – was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
• (2011) – was inducted into the Slovenian Athletes Hall of Fame

External links

• Leon Štukelj, Ave Triumphator: https://web.archive.org/web/20031204112314/http://stukelj.infotehna.si/english/leon.htm
• Leon Štukelj, the 100-year-old Olympic legend
• Leon Štukelj at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics on YouTube