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Oldest Olympic champion visits Athens
Posted: Friday April 02, 1999 03:17 PM
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Leon Stukelj, the oldest living Olympic gold medalist, is still a sports fan. He hopes to return in 2004 to watch the Olympic Games in Athens, he said Friday. At 101 and still active, the Slovenian former gymnast said he was overjoyed to visit the birthplace of the Olympics. "I would love to come back in 2004," he said. Stukelj won six Olympic medals, including two golds in the 1924 Paris Games and another in the 1928 Amsterdam Games. He won another 14 medals in other international events before retiring after the Berlin Olympics in 1936. "The medals give me great joy when I look a them because I know no one can take them from me, and that was a big achievement," he said after visiting the Acropolis. His busy three-day trip to Athens also included meetings with Greece's president, the culture minister and a visit to the all-marble Panathenian Stadium, where the first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896. He visited Greece on an invitation by the Greek-Slovenian chamber of commerce. Stukelj, born two years after the first modern Olympics, said he felt the spirit of the Ancient Games has changed with time. But he still found visiting the marble stadium a moving experience, he noted. Stukelj is due to return to Slovenia Saturday.
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