Leon Štukelj

Leon Štukelj

Leon Štukelj in 1958
Personal information
Born	(1898-11-12)12 November 1898 Novo Mesto, Austria-Hungary
Died	8 November 1999(1999-11-08) (aged 100) Maribor, Slovenia
Sport
Country	Yugoslavia
Sport	Men's artistic gymnastics
Medal record Men’s gymnastics Representing Yugoslavia Olympic Games 1924 Paris All-around 1924 Paris Horizontal bar 1928 Amsterdam Rings 1928 Amsterdam Team competition 1928 Amsterdam All-around 1936 Berlin Rings World Championships 1922 Ljubljana Parallel bars 1922 Ljubljana Horizontal bar 1922 Ljubljana Rings 1926 Lyon Horizontal bar 1926 Lyon Rings 1922 Ljubljana Pommel horse 1926 Lyon Parallel bars 1930 Luxembourg Horizontal bar

Leon Štukelj  listen  (12 November 1898 – 8 November 1999) was a Yugoslav gymnast of Slovene ethnicity, Olympic gold medalist and athlete.

He is a noted figure in Slovenian sporting history. Štukelj is one of the few Slovene athletes to have risen to the very top of his sport, where he remained right from the World Championships in Ljubljana in 1922 all the way to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, at which he finished his competitive gymnastics career.

Štukelj competed at seven major international competitions and captured a total of twenty medals: eight gold, six silver and six bronze. At the Olympic Games alone he won six medals: two gold medals (counted for Yugoslavia) in Paris in 1924, one gold medal and two bronze in Amsterdam in 1928, and a silver medal in Berlin in 1936, with which he concluded his career.

Štukelj was born in Novo Mesto, Austria-Hungary (now Slovenia).

In 1927 he completed his studies in law. Since the young age, he was an active member of the Slovenian Sokol athletic movement. After finishing his sports career he became a judge, first in his hometown Novo Mesto. Later he moved to Lenart, and then to Maribor, where he lived until his death. After World War II Štukelj was not a supporter of the newly formed Communist regime of Yugoslavia. It has been suggested that during World War Two, he took part in the Yugoslav royalist (Chetnik) movement, hostile to Tito's partisans, and maintained contacts with the British Special Operations Executive. For these reasons, he was suspicious to the new Communist regime. After the war, he was first imprisoned, then released but permanently disbarred from being a judge. He worked as a legal assistant for the rest of his career.