100-Year-Old Gold Medal Cyclist Charles Coste Will Carry the Torch at the Paris Olympics
Charles Coste turns 100-years-old this week, which makes him the oldest living French Olympic medalist. It also means that he was born in 1924, the last time Paris hosted the Summer Olympics. And now he’s heading back.
Coste will get the honor of carrying the Olympic torch in Paris, which will certainly bring back memories from his own athletic feats.
Coste won a track cycling Olympic gold in the team pursuit with Pierre Adam, Serge Blusson and Fernand Decanali in the 1948 Summer Games, which were held in London.
The Frenchman had a long and successful career even beyond the Olympic gold. He competed until 1959, winning the Grand Prix des Nations 140-kilometer time trial championship in 1949, the 1953 Paris-Limoges race, and the 1954 Ronde de Monaco.
His best finish in a major race was fourth at Paris-Roubaix in 1950. He also rode the Giro d’Italia three times, with a best finish of 40th in 1956. Coste did compete in the Tour de France in 1952 and 1957, but was unable to finish at both races.
According to CNN, “Coste’s gold is framed along with others, notably a medal he received from then President Vincent Auriol, in a room in his apartment in the Paris suburbs.”
He told Reuters, “It was a great honor to receive the medal from President Auriol, but the most valuable one is the Olympic medal.”
He went on to say, of his Olympic gold, “It was a small podium. They gave us the medal in a box, they did not put it around your neck at the time.”
“Then we waited and after a while they told us, ‘You won’t hear La Marseillaise, we could not find the disc.’ Our goal, however, was to get the gold medal.”
Coste described the Games as a break from what was going on in the rest of the world. A time when, as he said, “we still had food ration tickets” after World War II.
“There was no TV then, our only goal was to get the gold medal. We were a good team of comrades and we were representing a country that was just out of five years of (German) occupation,” Coste said.
Coste will likely receive just as much if not more fanfare in his role as torch carrier this year, as he did when he won the Olympic gold. And why not? We’ll certainly be cheering for this cycling legend.
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