100th Anniversary of the Olympic Champion Leon Štukelj

Number by catalogue:  Michel: BL8   Yvert: BF8   Gibbons: MS394  

Perforation: Comb   Perforation type: 14x14

Subject:

3 stamps, 100 Slovenian tolars each.

The subjects of the stamps are a portrait of Leon Stuckel* in old age, his sports activities and a meeting with the President of the International Olympic Committee at the time of his anniversary, Juan Antonio Samaranch.

In the center of the souvenir sheet there is a silhouette of the symbols of the cities in which Leon received high awards - Paris (1924), Amsterdam (1928) and Berlin (1932).

Additional:

*Leon Štukelj (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.

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.

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This information has been taken from Wikipedia

Size (of sheet, booklet) mm: 135x115