Josy Barthel - The One and Only, Part 1

Some countries have won just one single gold medal in their Olympic history. We portray them in our series "The One and Only". One of them: Luxemburg. 

Josy Barthel was shaken by tears of joy and his picture moved the world. On July 26th, 1952, the 25 year old student stormed past Robert McMillan (USA) and world record holder Werner Lueg from Germany to win Olympic gold in the 1500 meter race at the Helsinki Games. It remains Luxemburg's only Olympic victory until today (pictures: Luxemburger Wort, family archive).

Barthel was an outsider, but far from being a nobody. He had started running at the age of 15, won student's and military world titles, and had finished ninth at the 1948 London Games. In Helsinki, he won both his heat and his semifinal run. The field he beat in the final included fourth placed Britain Roger Bannister, who became the first man to run the mile in less than four minutes two years later.

Barthel's triumph made him no friends in Germany, the country which had occupied his homeland in 1940, which forced Barthel to run his first races for the German Gau Moselland. In the Winter of 1951/52, Barthel started training by instructions of legendary German coach Woldemar Gerschler, who had made Rudolf Harbig a world record runner in the 1930s. When Barthel denied Lueg the gold medal, German media called Gerschler "a traitor of the fatherland". In Helsini, Germany did not win a single gold medal.

Barthel, whose sports teacher Lucien Bentz had been executed by the Nazis in 1944 in the concentration camp at Hinzach, kept on running until 1956. He retired after bowing out in the heats at the Melbourne Olympics. In the 1970s, he became president of his country's National Olympic Comitee and minister for transportation, energy, tourism and environment.

Josy Barthel died in 1992. The national stadium of Luxemburg was renamed after her only Olympic champion (picture: mzhopping.de).

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