Julius Lenhart

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Julius Lenhart (born November 27, 1875 in Vienna , † November 10, 1962 there ) was a gymnast and the first double Olympic champion . Since he started for the Philadelphia gymnastics community, the IOC assigned his medals to the United States, even though he was never an American citizen.

Lenhart received his first training in Vienna, but he was soon drawn into the distance; among others to Munich and Switzerland , where he started for various clubs. In 1903 he went to Philadelphia , where he worked in a machine factory.

From the local "German gymnastics community" he was sent to the Olympic Games in St. Louis in 1904 . There he won two gold and one silver medal. He won one gold medal in the individual all- around competition, the other in the all- around team competition (together with Philipp Kassel , Anton Heida , Max Hess, Ernst Reckeweg and John Grieb) with 374.43 points and the silver medal in the gymnastics nine fight. (With this last medal, the names of the discipline in the various sources are not identical) Although he returned to Austria shortly afterwards, his successes at home were ignored; The medals were listed in the statistics for a long time for the USA , although he never had American citizenship: Since only club participants were allowed in gymnastics in St. Louis, he was classified as an American for Philadelphia. In 1936 he claimed to be classified as an Austrian.

In 1908 he retired from active competitive sports and worked as a mechanical engineer. Only after his death in 1962 was Lenhart recognized in Austria and the statistics adjusted.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Julius Lenhart, medal complaint after 32 years , Olympia Museum of the ÖOC