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US football player David Vanole passed away on 15 January. The former goalkeeper of the American team died while on a skiing trip in Utah.

Vanole played in the 1988 Olympics, where the US drew its first two matches and lost its third, placing last in their pool. We also played for the national team in the qualification for the 1990 World Cup, but did not make an appearance at the final tournament. After his athletic career, he became a coach, among others for the US women’s team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Dutch track athlete Ali de Vries, died 21 January in Amsterdam at age 91. She competed in the sprint events at the 1936 Berlin Games. With the Dutch 4 x 100 m relay team (featuring a young Fanny Koen - later Blankers-Koen), she placed 5th in the final.

Romanian distance runner Maria Cioncan was killed in car accident near the town of Pleven (Bulgaria) on 21 January. She was on her way home from a training camp in Greece when her car crashed into a tree.

Cioncan was the bronze medallist in the 1500 m at the 2004 Athens Games, finishing behind Kelly Holmes and Tatyana Tomashova.

Australian triple jumper Ken Lorraway died on 4 January 2007. Lorraway had competed in two Olympics. In 1980 he finished 8th in the final of the triple jump; in 1984 he failed to qualify for the final.

Ken Lorraway was married to Robyn Lorraway, who finished 6th in the 1984 women’s long jump.

Yelena Petushkova, Olympic champion in the individual dressage in 1972, passed away on 8 January 2007. Petushkova first competed in the Olympics in Mexico 1968, when she finished 6th in the individual event, and won a silver medal with the Soviet team. Four years later that team performance was repeated, winning her third Olympic medal.

After her active career Petushkova, who was also for some time married to high jump champion Valery Brumel, served as president of the Russian Equestrian Federation (1996-1999) and as vice-president of the USSR National Olympic Committee (1983-1991).

Cuban volleyball player Ernesto Martínez Hernández died 7 January 2007. Martínez competed in three Olympics, winning a bronze medal in Montréal 1976, placing 7th in Munich 1972 and 10th in Moscow 1980. He also won a bronze medal in the 1978 World Championships in Italy.

Macedonian football great Blagoja Vidinić passed away on 29 December 2006. A goalkeeper with the Yugoslav football team, he played at the 1956 and 1960 Olympics, reaching the final on both occasions. In Melbourne, Yugoslavia lost to the Yashin-lead USSR, already having lost the Olympic finals of 1948 and 1952. In Rome, they finally won their gold medal, beating Denmark 3-1. In the  same year, Vidinić and Yugoslavia also played the final of the inaugural European Championships, again losing to the USSR.

After his active career, Vidinić became a coach and lead two African teams at the World Cup, Morocco (1970) and Zaire (1974).

British middle and long distance runner Sydney Wooderson died at age 92 on 21 December 2006. At his only Olympic appearance, he was hampered by an ankle injury and didn’t progress past the first round of the 1500 m. Two years later he improved world records in the 800 m, 880 y and the mile, setting it at 4.06,4. He also won the European Championships in the 1500 m. After the war he won another European title in the 5000 m.

U.S. Olympian Johnny Gibson passed away at the age of 101 on 29 December. New York-born Gibson competed in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, where he competed in the 400 m hurdles, failing to qualify for the final. A year earlier he had set a new world record in the event (52,6) and beaten the 1928 champion, the British Lord Burghley.
After retiring, he turned to coaching, and lead sprinter Andy Stanfield to two Olympic medals in the 1950s.

Austrian Minister of the Interior and former Olympic medallist Liese Prokop passed away on New Year’s Eve 2006. She competed in three Olympics, first in 1964 as Elisabeth “Liese” Sykora, when she didn’t make the final in the high jump. She then married her coach Gunnar Prokop and became mother, before returning to competitive sport.

As Liese Prokop she started in Mexico City, where she won a silver medal in the pentathlon. The folowing year she broke the world record in that event, and won the European title. She returned to the Olympics in 1972, but had to forfeit after three events (placed 8th).

By then, she had already become involved in politics, being elected in the parliament of the state of Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) for the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). From 1992 to 2004 she was deputy governer, before being asked to fill in as interior minister when her predecessor Ernst Strasser quit unexpectedly.

Prokop’s sister and nephew are also Olympians. Maria Sykora competed at the Munich Olympics in the 400 m, 800 m and 4 x 400 m relay. After missing the Montréal Olympics, she switched to handball, and eventually competed in the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Thomas Sykora, the son of their brother Ernst, participated in two Olympics as an alpine skier. In Nagano 1998, he won a bronze medal in the slalom.