Alfred
Flatow won three gold medals in Athens, Greece, at the first
modern
Olympiad in 1896. He also won a silver
medal.
Alfred and Gustav Felix Flatow were
among ten athletes selected to compete
for Germany in the Athens Games. Alfred captured his gold
medal honors in Individual Parallel Bars, Team Parallel Bars,
and
Team Horizontal Bars. He took the silver medal in the
Horizontal Bars event.
(There is conjecture as to whether
victorious Athens athletes actually received
awards in the fashion of gold
and silver medals for first and second
places. Bronze awards were not designated
until the 1904 Olympic Games.
Factually, Flatow finished first in three
events and second in one event.)
In 1903, Flatow assisted the founding
of the Judische Turnerschaft, the
historic and pioneering Jewish sports
organization in Europe. He was prominently
active in German gymnastics
until expelled by the Nazis in 1936. Alfred
Flatow died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942.
In 1997, the City of Berlin honored the memory of Alfred
and cousin Gustav Flatow by renaming its Reichssportsfeld
Strasse (street of the National Sports Complex) Flatowallee
(Flatow Blvd.). The following year, the German Postal Service
issued a set of four stamps commemorating the (1896-1996)
Olympic Centennial. One of the stamps (200+80 marks) features
Germany’s first Olympic gymnastics champions, Alfred
and Gustav Flatow. |