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LEON ŠTUKELJ, OLYMPIC CHAMPION 1924 IN 
GYMNASTICS. PERFORMANCES AND LEGACY  
 
Tony Froissart1 & Thierry Terret2 
 
1 Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne- STAPS, Reims, France 
2 Ministère de l'Education nationale de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche,Paris, 
France 
 
Original article                                                                                DOI:10.52165/sgj.14.1.5-15 
Abstract 
Olympic champion in the general event in gymnastics at the 8th Olympiad in 1924, Leon 
Štukelj performed remarkably in international competitions. This article proposes to analyze 
the innovative character of the performance carried out by the gymnast of the Yugoslavian 
team, to appreciate the context of its realization and to evaluate his legacies. Through his 
performance, Štukelj paved the way to major evolutions in gymnastics, especially in the rings 
event where he excelled. Certain technical regulations of international gymnastics seem to 
have been especially inspired by the elements he performed in 1924. Štukelj was also 
considered an emblematic figure of the educational method developed by the Yugoslav 
Sokols. As a consequence, his imprint as a symbol of a moral and physical system of training 
was also very strong. The paper is positioned in the field of cultural history. It aims to study 
the evolution of Štukelj’s performance and legacy. In addition to the historiography of the 
1924 Olympic Games, it uses various primary sources: the French daily press published on 
the occasion of the 1924 Olympic Games, the archives of the Lausanne Olympic Study Center, 
the archives of the city of Colombes, the official reports of the 1924, 1928 and 1936 Olympic 
Games, the archives of the International Gymnastics Federation and Štukelj’s autobiography 
(1989). 
 
Keyswords: Štukelj, Olympic Games 1924, Gymnastics, Legacy, Sokol.
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
The sporting career of Leon Štukelj, 
Olympic champion in 1924 and multiple 
medalist later on, was special in many 
respects. The Slovenian gymnast 
(Yugoslav at that time) succeeded in 
remaining at the highest level in his sport 
for many years. In fourteen years, from 
1922 to 1936, he accumulated a 
remarkable total of seventeen world 
awards. 
The special place of Leon Štukelj in 
the history of gymnastics led us to analyze 
the conditions that made his emergence as 
a champion possible, as well as his role in  
 
 
 
 
the evolution of gymnastic techniques: was 
he an innovator or was he simply a lucky 
beneficiary of changes in the sport 
regulations? It is also relevant to go back 
to the impression made by this Slovenian 
gymnast in France, a country where he 
acceded to the international scene for the 
first time in the beginning of the 1920s. 
How was he presented and perceived in the 
French press during the Olympic Games in 
1924? Was he valued for his athletic 
performance? For his nationality? Or was 
he, rather, presented as the emblematic 
representative of a special method of 
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physical and moral education?  What is 
Leon Štukelj’s final legacy? 
We will first argue that the context of 
the 1924 Olympic Games was favorable to 
major changes in the definition of 
gymnastic excellence and that the new 
regulations opened opportunities for new 
profiles of gymnasts. We will then analyze 
the gymnastic performances by the 
Slovenian gymnast Leon Štukelj during the 
Olympic week in 1924. Finally, we will 
use a media analysis to come to 
conclusions about the legacy of Leon 
Štukelj’s performances at the 8th Olympic 
Games. 
 
METHODS 
 
Despite his record, Leon Štukelj has 
not been the subject of extensive 
biographical research, neither by historians 
of Olympism nor by political historians, 
apart from the two short articles devoted to 
him by Slovenian historian Vlado Bevc in 
Smiling Slovenia (2008, p. 73 and 74-78). 
However, the current paper follows and 
completes a few earlier investigations 
(Froissart, T., Villaret, S., 2008; Froissart, 
T., 2008; Froissart, T., 2010). To carry out 
this study, we used Slovenian works, the 
proceedings of the 1998 colloquium 
(Štukelj L. & Francek J., 1998) and the 
major work in four volumes by French 
historian Thierry Terret, Les Paris des 
Jeux Olympiques de 1924 (2008). Our 
primary sources include the archives of the 
Olympic Study Center in Lausanne, the 
archives of the city of Colombes, the 
official reports of the Olympic Games of 
1924, 1928 and 1936, the archives of the 
International Gymnastics Federation and 
Štukelj’s autobiography (1989). 
The study also includes an analysis of 
the French daily press published during the 
1924 Olympic Games to evaluate the way 
Štukelj was presented by journalists when 
the champion was at the peak of his sports 
career. A study of the main French national 
dailies of the period has been carried out 
with a two-fold approach. First, we 
analyzed a selection of the press articles 
dealing with the gymnastics events of the 
8th Olympic Games published between 
Thursday 17 and Monday 21 July 1924. 
Particular attention has been paid to the 
newspapers published on 20 and 21 July 
that reported on the day dedicated to 
gymnastic performances, including: 
L'Auto, La Croix, Echo d'Alger, Echo 
d'Oran, Echo de Paris, Excelsior, Le 
Figaro, Le Gaulois, Le Grand Echo du 
Nord, l’Homme libre, l’Humanité, 
L’intransigeant, Le Journal, La Lanterne, 
La Liberté, Le Matin, L’Œuvre, Paris midi, 
Le Petit parisien, Le Populaire, La Presse, 
Le radical, Le siècle, Le Temps. These 
daily newspapers belong either to the 
general press or to the sporting press. They 
mirrored the large diversity of France’s 
political orientations at the time. A second 
investigation was then carried out by 
searching the same corpus of newspapers 
for key words (Štukelj, gymnastics, Sokol) 
in the period when Štukelj took part in 
competitions as a gymnast or a trainer. 
This last analysis was based on the Gallica 
database of the National Library of France. 
 
 
RESULTS AND DISCUSION 
 
A favorable context for new forms of 
performances in gymnastics. 
The 8th Olympic Games took place in 
Paris, between March 15 and July 27, 
1924. They brought together nearly 6,000 
athletes from 45 nations and saw the 
United States dominating the event. The 
Yugoslav delegation in Paris did not 
belong to the most represented nations: 
with 201 athletes, the country took part in 
8 of the 19 sporting events of the Olympic 
program and finished at the 14th place in 
the ranking of nations. It however finished 
third in gymnastics, a result to which Leon 
Štukelj made a decisive contribution by 
winning the individual gymnastics event. 
It, however, appears that the Olympic 
title was partly the consequence of 
favorable circumstances that occurred in 
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1924. During the Paris Olympic Games, 
the gymnastics competition included the 
usual six apparatus (floor exercises, 
pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel 
bars, horizontal bar) to which climbing a 
rope was added. It is important to mention 
that the previous World Championships in 
Ljubljana in 1922 were much more open 
(Barrull, R., 1984). They included four 
apparatus (parallel bars, horizontal bar, 
still rings, pommel horse) and also athletic 
events: the competitors took part in three 
group events (Preliminary); they also 
competed in swimming  50m freestyle, and 
in track and field disciplines including 
100m sprint, high jump with hard 
springboard and shot put (7.257 kg). 
In 1924, the transition from 
gymnastics which was based on a general 
and polyvalent physical education concept 
to gymnastics which was progressively 
more oriented toward the use of pendular 
apparatus was engendered by a new 
generation of champions. By refocusing 
around two large types of events that 
required comparable physical qualities, the 
Paris Olympic program changed the very 
nature of the expected performances. 
Whether on apparatus where they swayed 
while swinging, or in events which favored 
acrobatic jumps, gymnasts had to extract 
themselves from gravity. Therefore, those 
who combined low body weight with thin 
and protruding muscles were more likely 
to be successful. With a height of 1.61 m 
and weight of 51 kg, Štukelj presented the 
ideal morphotype. 
The exclusion of track and field 
events from the Paris gymnastics program 
encouraged new athletic profiles of slender 
and agile men who were able to exploit 
their body weight / muscle power ratio, 
and weakened the chances of strong and 
heavy muscular men. Thus, the official 
report of the Olympic Games explained the 
poor results of the Luxembourg team in 
rope climbing by the fact that these 
gymnasts “were certainly the heaviest of 
the group” (Official Report of the 1924 
Olympic Games, p. 356). This 
reorientation was supported by Charles 
Cazalet, the president of the Union of 
Gymnastic Societies of France (1896) and 
the future president of the International 
Gymnastics Federation in 1924, who gave 
Štukelj the opportunity to exploit his 
physical and morphological qualities and 
to establish himself as the best gymnast of 
the time. 
 
Štukelj at the Olympic Games of Paris 
1924 
Leon Štukelj's gymnastic skills were built 
during childhood, through his education at 
the Sokol of Novo Mesto. His favorite 
events were revealed in 1922, during the 
World Championships organized in his 
country. In Ljubljana, he won the parallel 
bars, the horizontal bar and the still rings, 
finished second on the pommel horse and 
tenth on the floor exercises. He was second 
in the rope climbing event. He was, 
however, less brilliant in the athletic 
events, especially in the shot put where his 
performance did not allow him to be 
ranked or receive a single point. 
Luck is part of sport. During the 1924 
Olympic Games, circumstances 
handicapped Štukelj's direct competitors 
and sometimes even led to their 
elimination. For example, on the evening 
of the first day, the weather deteriorated 
which mattered as the gymnastics events 
were held outside. The wind and the 
diminishing temperature considerably 
hampered the Italian and Swiss teams who 
were performing in the horizontal bar 
event at the same time (Official Report of 
the 1924 Olympic Games, p. 346). 
Members of both teams who had a real 
chance of success were interrupted. Later, 
in the parallel bars event, two members of 
the Czechoslovak team fell and Jindruch, 
another direct competitor of Štukelj, was 
forced to retire with a knee injury. Finally, 
Leon Štukelj, who did not present himself 
as the favorite, managed to use all his 
moral and physical qualities in a situation 
which turned out to be favorable for him. 
He thereby revealed another facet of his 
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talent by showing remarkable tactical 
intelligence. There, he succeeded on the 
grassed surface of the stadium of 
Colombes, using his adaptive qualities and 
agility he had built during the lessons at 
Sokol some years earlier. 
 
 
 
Table 1 
Ranking of Leon Štukelj during the 8th Olympiad (OG Paris 1924). 
 
Horizontal 
bar 
Parallel 
bars 
Still rings Rope 
climb 
Vault (in 
length) 
Vault (in 
width) 
Pommel 
horse 
General 
ranking 
1st 20th 4th 10th 4th 17th 10th 1rst 
 
 
Table 2  
Score obtained by Leon Štukelj on pendula Apparatus in the Paris 1924 Olympic Games. 
Source: Official Report of the Olympic Games 1924, pp. 346-366. 
 
Apparatus Compulsory exercices Free exercices Full score 
 Walking 
to 
apparatus 
/0,5 
Score 
/10 
Return 
from 
apparatu
s /0,5 
Total Walkin
g to 
apparat
us /0,5 
Score 
/10 
Return 
from 
appara
tus 
/0,5 
Total  
Horizontal 
bar 
0,5 9,23 0,5 10,2
3 
0,5 8,50 0,5 9,50 19,73 
Parallel 
bars 
0,5 9,27 0,5 10,2
7 
0,5 9,13 0,5 10,13 20,40 
Still rings 0,5 9,33 0,5 10,3
3 
0,5 10* 0,5 11,00 21,33 
Pommel 
horse 
0,5 9,17 0,5 10,1
7 
0,5 8,20 0,5 9,20 19,37 
*Perfect 10 score. 
 
Table 3. 
Individual all-around and pendula Apparatus ranking achieved by L. Štukelj during 
international events (compulsory + free). 
 
 
 
Parallel 
bars 
Horizontal 
bar 
Pommel 
horse Still rings 
General 
ranking 
1922 WC Ljubljana 1 1 2 1 7 
1924 OG Paris 20 1 10 4 1 
1926 WC Lyon 3 1 14 1 2 
1928 OG Amsterdam 5 13 13 1 3 
1930 WC Luxembourg NC 3 NC NC  
1931 WC Paris 2 10 3 2 1 
1936 OG Berlin 22 35 39 2 32 
      In bold: the podiums. 
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Figure 1. Rings compulsory exercises of the OG 1924. 8th Olympic Games Amsterdam 1928, 
Executive Committee. 
 
 
The competition was, however, fierce, 
especially with the Czechoslovak gymnasts 
who had also trained as Sokols. Štukelj 
succeeded on still rings, demonstrating 
very difficult skills in which, in addition to 
two horizontal planks and the iron cross, 
he distinguished himself with the “inverted 
iron cross”, which consisted of a backrest 
upside down with vertical legs and 
horizontal arms. Despite his technical 
prowess, however, Štukelj did not win a 
medal on still rings. He was slightly behind 
after the compulsory exercises where he 
totaled only 9.33 points and lost his 
chances for the podium. Although he 
obtained the maximum score of 11 points 
in free exercises (out of 11 possible 
points), he finally finished fourth in this 
event. At least his last performance in free 
exercises positioned him as an outstanding 
specialist in this event. 
Considering the whole competition, 
Štukelj’s performances were not enough to 
outclass his Czechoslovak rivals. His 
Olympic title was actually rather a 
consequence of other points of the sport 
regulations. Leon Štukelj obtained the 
maximum “presentation score” on each 
apparatus, not only for “walking to the 
apparatus” where he received the 
maximum half-point at each passage 
granted for the quality of this walk, but 
also for the "return from the apparatus" 
where he obtained two additional points on 
four apparatus. His direct competition did 
not manage to achieve the same. 
Czechoslovakian Prazack, second in the 
all-around, was penalized after returning 
from the fixed bar practice (Reck) where 
he only obtained 0.47 points. Supcik, 
another Czechoslovak who was third in the 
all-around competition, was also penalized 
for the way back from the imposed fixed 
bar exercise with a score of 0.43 point, and 
another time when he returned from the 
pommel horse where his score was 0.40 
point. Leon Štukelj’s automaton 
movement, on the other hand, pushed him 
far ahead of his opponents, leading to the 
supreme title. His walking skill even 
passed down to posterity by the grace of 
poetry since it was mentioned in the poem 
Gymnastics by Géo Charles, the 1924 
Olympic champion in the “art and 
literature competition”: "Who has 
glimpsed the Yugoslavs, their Štukelj, 
automatons” (Géo Charles, 1925). 
The results indicate that Štukelj and 
Prazack scored almost identical points. 
Had the latter obtained the maximum result 
on the return score he would have been 
crowned the Olympic champion, since 17 
thousandths of a point separated the two 
competitors: 110.340 points for Štukelj and 
110.323 points for Prazack. 
 
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In Paris, Leon Štukelj did not shine in 
acrobatics (floor, vault), nor in the various 
events where he obtained marks of 10 in 
the rope climbing with a performance of 8 
seconds and 2/5; 9.91 on the vault in 
length, and 9.60 on the vault in broad. On 
the other hand, his remarkable capacities in 
the pendula apparatus (still rings, 
horizontal bar, parallel bars) played an 
essential role and helped him shoot ahead 
of his opponents. 
In Amsterdam in 1928, as gymnast 
teams from Switzerland, Czechoslovakia 
and Yugoslavia competed for the top steps 
on the podium, Štukelj excelled in the 
rings event and won the gold medal as well 
as two bronze medals in both the 
individual all-around and the team 
competition. 
During the 1930s, competition 
became more uncertain with the 
appearances of Swiss Georges Miez and 
Czechoslovakians Ladislav Vacha and Jan 
Gajdos. Leon Štukelj won no event in 
Luxembourg at the 1930 international 
tournament nor in the individual 
competition at the World Championship in 
Paris in 1931. As a good Sokol member he 
persevered, however, and obtained a silver 
medal in the rings event during the final 
event of the Olympic Games in Berlin in 
1936: he finished ahead of  the German 
Mathias Volz in his specialty with a total 
of 18.867 points, and was only beaten by 
his compatriot Alois Hudec by a very 
small margin. On this occasion, 
Yugoslavia lost the leadership it shared 
with Czechoslovakia, but Štukelj's sport 
longevity remained remarkable. 
 
What is Štukelj’s legacy in France? 
Paris was the land of Štukelj's first 
Olympic consecration. What remained of 
the Slovenian gymnast in France? 
 
Does Štukelj leave a sporting legacy? 
Štukelj was only the sixth member to be 
selected for the national team at the World 
Championship won by the 
Czechoslovakian team over Yugoslavia 
and France in Ljubljana on August 11 and 
12, 1922. He finished seventh overall but 
was victorious in the unofficial rankings 
established on rings (19.75), parallel bars 
(20) and horizontal bar (19.75) (Barrull R., 
p. 376). During the competition he 
obtained a total of 124.25 points or 82.83% 
of the maximum possible total. This 
performance was, however, insufficient to 
win him a medal. Štukelj was outpaced by 
his teammates Peter Šumi, Stane Derganc 
and Stane Vidmar (Štukelj, L., 1989, 86) 
and did not even position himself as the 
leader of his team. In addition, 
Czechoslovakia performed extremely well 
and won the Championships with two of 
their gymnasts on the podium: Frantisek 
Pechacek shared the first place with Peter 
Šumi, Miroslav Klinger finished third and 
Miroslav Jindruch fifth. The domination of 
the Slavs and the superiority of the Sokols 
were absolute since the first ten places 
were all taken by these two nations. Two 
years later, during the Olympic Games in 
Paris, these two countries again featured as 
favorites. 
The gymnastic heritage of the Slavic 
nations can be appreciated through the 
testimony of French gymnast R. Morin 
who finished 26th at the competition in 
Ljubljana. He provided an analysis of the 
transformations in modern gymnastics as 
discovered by the public during the 8th 
Olympic Games in 1924. For him, the 
evolution toward momentum rather than 
strength was “already consistent among 
foreign competitors who presented free 
exercises that were more linked, more 
flexible” from 1922 onward (Morin, 1948, 
241). This was enough to feature on the 
front page of the newspaper Le Matin (July 
20, 1924) with headline “Honor to 
gymnastics at the Olympic games” and 
praise for the “seven champions” and the 
“super champion” Štukelj. 
Štukelj thus embodied the image of 
the modern gymnast. The particular 
influence he exerted can be analyzed in 
particular on his specialty: the rings event. 
Štukelj was one of the first to perform  the 
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static “overturned iron cross” in 
competition. When comparing the 
exercises in the rings event and the 
relevant regulations in 1924 and in 1928, it 
can be concluded that the official 
regulations took notice of his innovations. 
In 1924, the compulsory exercises were 
mainly static postures: three planks, a 
square, two balances and the iron cross. 
Strength prevailed and two exercises only 
were carried out with momentum (Official 
Report 1924, 353). Four years later, the 
dominant techniques in the rings event 
seemed to have changed: the entry (1, 2, 3) 
was carried by momentum, followed by a 
series of strength exercises (4 to 10) 
including the reversed cross with the feet 
on the cables; exercises with momentum 
(11 to 19), and the exit in rotation. The 
required movement was therefore 
composed of an alternation of static and 
dynamic elements. 
A careful observation of the 
compulsory exercises in 1928 shows that 
the construction and organization of the 
elements in the rings event reveals 
similarities with the free exercise carried 
out by Štukelj in 1924. This is especially 
the case for elements 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 
12, and 13 listed in the following diagram 
which represent the compulsory exercises 
in 1928. Only the exit (elements 14 to 19) 
was actually different from the compulsory 
one in 1928. 
We find neither the iron cross nor the 
overturned iron cross among the 1928 
compulsory exercises. Yet element 13 of 
the diagram still requires to perform the 
“reversed cross” with, the possibility of not 
maintaining the position. Thus, it seems 
that the compulsory exercises were seen as 
an anticipation of the coming evolution of 
gymnastic techniques: to propose not to 
maintain the position and to require that 
the feet touch the cables for help were a 
clear encouragement for the gymnasts to 
perform this difficult element. Without 
generalizing, this example shows that Leon 
Štukelj contributed to the evolution of 
gymnastics through the compulsory 
exercises on the rings event. Could such 
influence on the sport regulations be also  
found in the press? 
 
The image of Štukelj in the French press 
Astonishingly enough for a country 
with a gymnastic tradition, the French 
press did not really pay too much attention 
to gymnastics during the Olympic Games 
in Paris. This was partly due to the low 
popularity of this competition where the 
number of spectators was relatively low. 
According to the official report of the 
Games, there were only 1911 spectators, 
including 707 who paid for their seat who, 
for instance, attended the gymnastics 
events on July 17. There were 1863 
spectators (654 with a paid ticket) on July 
18, even fewer the next day, and finally 
4553 spectators on Sunday, July 20, 
including 3276 who paid for their ticket. 
This result led the newspaper La Liberté 
(July 21, 1924) to claim that gymnastics 
failed to become popular: “Gymnastics is 
completely neglected by the public which 
pays attention to gymnasts only very 
rarely”. However, despite this very modest 
media covering, Leon Štukelj received 
special attention, with at least two types of 
media treatment. 
The first series of journalistic 
chronicles focused on Štukelj’s exemplary 
performances and techniques. For 
example, famous French gymnast and 
promoter of the Hebertist physical 
education method D. Strohl regretted in 
L'intransigeant (July 25, 1924, 4) that the 
conditions needed for high performances 
were not appropriate, but he presented 
Štukelj as a brilliant gymnast whose 
practice augured the qualities of the 
gymnasts of the future: “Why this 
immense desert of Colombes? A beautiful 
gymnasium would have been a better 
setting to showcase the most robust fellows 
that the games have produced: Štukels (sic) 
the Yugoslav, so powerful and so flexible, 
[…]”. 
Another media register was used to 
associate the Slovenian champion with the 
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Sokol movement of which he was 
described as an emblematic representative. 
The image of Štukelj as the man of the 
Sokols was even more emphasized than his 
sporting image. Thus, when the daily 
newspaper Le matin decided to put the 
Olympic champion of the individual all-
around on the front page of its edition of 
July 21, 1924, the decision was made not 
to use a photograph of the gymnast in 
action. Rather, Štukelj appeared on a 
medallion, in bust, wearing the hat with the 
falcon plume, i.e., the emblem of the 
Sokols. Likewise, in the July 23 edition 
(p.4), L’indépendant des Basses Pyrénées 
mentions Štukelj’s performance, but the 
newspaper amalgamates the different 
Slavic nations where the Sokols were 
active and claims that “Czech-Slovak 
Štukels (so spelled) won the individual 
tournament in front of two of his 
compatriots”. 
This association of Štukelj with the 
Sokol movement in the French press could 
also be seen in the suggestive slip of the 
newspaper La Croix (July 20, 1924, p.3) 
which changed the spelling of the 
champion's name to “Štukols”, i.e., a 
contraction of both the gymnast’s name 
and the Slavic gymnastic movement: Stu 
[kelj] [So] kol. Beyond this anecdote it 
should be remembered that the very 
popular sports daily newspaper L'Auto 
regularly underlined the action of the 
Sokols for the development of national 
identity and consciousness in the Slavic 
countries (Busseuil, 2020; Thiesse, 1999) 
at the time. The exemplarity (Saint-Martin, 
2002, 43-57) of the Yugoslav Sokols was 
frequently praised (L'Auto, November 14, 
1935, p. 6; L'Auto, August 2, 1935, p. 1 
and 4, August 3, 1935, p. 1 and 5 and 2 
August 1936, p. 5). It is true that the links 
between the promoters of French 
gymnastics and those of the Sokols had 
been forged a long time before (Cesky 
Svet Sokol, 1912), as recalled by Smutny, 
the president of the Czechoslovak Sokol in 
Paris, who was the first to invite a section 
of the Czech Sokol to the Federal Festival 
of Vincennes in 1889 (L’auto, August 27, 
1929). 
This close relationship between 
France and the Sokol movement was still 
extremely strong in the early 1930. 
Delegations of the Czech and Yugoslav 
Sokols were thus invited to the Federal 
Festival of the Union of Gymnastic 
Societies of France in 1931. Conversely, 
the French gymnastics leaders went to 
Prague to attend the mass performances of 
the Sokols (Slets) in 1932 when Under-
Secretary of State for Physical Education 
and Professor at the University of Lyon 
André Latarjet was accompanied by 
several delegations from large cities (Paris, 
Marseille and Lille) (Saint-Martin J., 
2002). 
During these encounters, the Sokols 
and Štukelj were sometimes glorified. This 
was, for instance. the case during the 
World Championship in 1931, when the 
newspaper Le Petit Parisien on July 12, 
1931 (p 4.) analyzed the French chances. 
They observed the Slavs in training and to 
journalists the Sokols appeared once again 
as the favorites. Especially when “among 
them are eight gymnastic champions 
including Štukelj, the World Champion at 
the 1924 Olympics, and Primožič, winner 
of the International Gymnastics 
Championships which took place last year 
in Luxembourg”. Thus, Štukelj was still 
considered a formidable opponent and the 
gymnastics he practiced with strength and 
flexibility still an example to follow. The 
champion's impact on the press in France 
seemed to last a very long time: 15 years 
after his victory at the 1924 Olympic 
Games, he was still presented as a talented 
coach during a meeting at the Pierre de 
Coubertin stadium in Paris (L'Auto, May 
13, 1939).  
 
CONCLUSION 
 
The innovative nature of Štukelj's 
practice is indisputable, partly because the 
gymnastics he performed was different in 
the sense that certain elements such as the 
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“inverted iron cross” were previously 
unrecognized, but also because he knew 
how to use his Sokol education to optimize 
the opportunities of the sport regulation at 
a time of technical changes. 
Štukelj did not transform the practice 
of gymnastics as a whole. He nevertheless 
inaugurated a change in the ring 
techniques. He indeed made the most of 
the alternation of strength and momentum 
as well as new qualities, which were 
identified in the official report of the 1924 
Olympic Games as follows “[...] an 
incomparable lightness and flexibility at 
the service of superior technique, 
considerable endurance and strength of 
will” (J. Dalbanne, Official Report of the 
1924 Olympic Games, p. 339). Štukelj's 
technique and strength were transcended 
by the values he held as a Sokol. He 
himself explained how much he was 
carried by the education he received within 
the Sokols; it strengthened his patriotic 
convictions and also built the rigor and 
stubbornness needed later for training. 
Sokol education was the basis of Štukelj’s 
remarkable will mentioned by J. Dalbanne. 
As a champion without spectators in 
Paris in 1924, then as a champion 
underestimated in regards of the gigantism 
of the Games in Berlin in 1936, Štukelj 
remained relatively unknown to the 
general public. His symbolic rebirth came 
later and dates back to the end of the 20th 
century. His fame was revived with 
Slovenia’s independence in the 1990s (25 
June 1991). The country, freed from 
communism, caught the attention of 
Western countries. The context oversized 
the symbols of identity of the new nation. 
Now the oldest Olympic champion, and 
still very valiant, Leon Štukelj offered a 
positive evocation of non-violent 
combativeness. He also cultivated this 
image, and liked to recall that he had 
always wanted, through his membership in 
the Sokols, to train his body and his mind, 
and not to subscribe to any political 
orientation. 
Everything suggests that the iconic 
power of a champion like Štukelj, who had 
been educated in the Sokol of Novo Mesto, 
was thus reinforced. After the fall of the 
Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Eastern 
Bloc, Štukelj was approached to become 
one of the founding members of the 
Slovenian Olympic Committee, finally 
created on October 19, 1991, and 
recognized by the IOC in February 1992. 
This is also why when in 1994, on the 
occasion of the hundredth anniversary of 
the Olympic movement, the IOC wished to 
honor those who have contributed to the 
development of Olympism, Štukelj re-
emerged. After fifty years in the shadow, 
he  embarked on a second career in sports 
and became an ambassador of both the 
values of Olympism and the virtues of 
physical practice. As he grew older, he 
attracted admiration of observers who were 
seduced by his dynamism. As the oldest 
living Olympic champion, he was invited 
to the opening ceremony of the 1996 
Atlanta Olympic Games where he carried 
the Olympic torch. In 1997, at the age of 
98, he was inducted into the International 
Gymnastics Hall of Fame as the longest-
serving Olympic gold medalist alive. The 
following year, a few months before he 
passed away, his hometown of Novo 
Mesto organized a ceremony in his honor, 
the Ave Triumphator, to celebrate his one 
hundredth anniversary (Berger, Kuljaj, 
1998). On top of this, various events were 
organized, including a scientific 
conference on the theme “Sport, Health 
and Old Age” (International scientific 
meeting at the centenary of the Olympic 
champion Leon Štukelj: "Sport - Health - 
Old Age", 11-18 November 1998). 
Like Hungarian gymnast Agnes 
Keleti, who is the current oldest Olympic 
champion (David & Dobor 2020), Leon 
Štukelj's legacy is undoubtedly linked to 
his longevity and vitality in view of his age 
and not only to his remarkable sports 
career and to its past performances. 
Through these values, it is more the impact 
of the Sokol education than our 
Froissart T., & Terret T.: LEON ŠTUKELJ; OLYMPIC CHAMPION 1924 IN GYMNASTICS…        Vol. 14 Issue 1: 5 - 15 
 
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remembrance of his gymnastic 
achievements that still live on. 
 
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Corresponding author: 
Tony Froissart 
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne- 
STAPS 
Campus Moulin de la Housse 51100 Reims 
Reims 51097 
France  
Email: tony.froissart@univ-reims.fr 
 
Article received: 4.9.2021 
Article accepted: 26.9.2021 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Froissart T., & Terret T.: LEON ŠTUKELJ; OLYMPIC CHAMPION 1924 IN GYMNASTICS…        Vol. 14 Issue 1: 5 - 15 
 
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