Alois Hudec

Alois Hudec
Alois Hudec
	Alois Hudec, displaying his mastery on the Still Rings apparatus c. 1931
Personal information
Born	July 12, 1908; Račice, Austria-Hungary
Died	January 23, 1997 (aged 88); Prague, Czech Republic
Gymnastics career
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Country represented	Czechoslovakia
Olympic Games
World Championships

Alois Hudec (12 July 1908 – 23 January 1997)^[1] was a Czechoslovak gymnast and an individual World and Olympic Champion in the sport.

He competed for Czechoslovakia at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where he received a gold medal in rings.^[2] Part of his performance there is recorded in an 85-second shot in Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia. He also competed at three World Championships in a row (1931, 1934, 1938) where he won the rings title every time.

Hudec also bears another particular distinction within the annals of the history of the sport. Although the 1931 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships often seem to go ignored by various authorities within the sport, the FIG, in their 125-Year Anniversary Publication, refers to them as the "First Artistic Men's World Championships".^[3] As he became the overall World All-Around Champion at those games, according to some authorities, Hudec could be considered the first-ever World All-Around Champion in the sport of Men's Artistic Gymnastics.

References

^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Alois Hudec". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 2020-04-17.
^ "1936 Summer Olympics – Berlin, Germany – Gymnastics" Archived 2007-08-27 at the Wayback Machine databaseOlympics.com (Retrieved on March 31, 2008)
^ Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (2005). 125th Anniversary - The story goes on... FIG. p. 15.