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Oldest Surviving World Finalists


BOBBATH

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1 hour ago, BOBBATH said:

Split I am in an even worse shape than you, I gotta go to young Jim McMillan at #31. I can recall watching Jim's older brother, Bill, and seeing Jim starting out. Class bloke!! Wot about others of our generation e.g. Norbold, BL65 where would you rank!!

Well, I'm just a puppy... John Jorgensen is the first world finalist younger than I, and he's way down at 90! He was born three days after me.

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2 hours ago, BOBBATH said:

Split I am in an even worse shape than you, I gotta go to young Jim McMillan at #31. I can recall watching Jim's older brother, Bill, and seeing Jim starting out. Class bloke!! Wot about others of our generation e.g. Norbold, BL65 where would you rank!!

Doug Wyer is the first one younger than me. I feel like quite a youngster now compared to you and Split!

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Stefan Danno for me. I'm barely past being a foetus

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10 hours ago, BOBBATH said:

Sheesh- Tommy Knudsen-great World Final 1981. I woz there. I recall his great racing- finished in top 3 in his  first WF!! Last one at Wembley!!

Still seems like yesterday to me. I was 19 at the time!

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3 hours ago, Split said:

Just noticed that there are seven swedes in the top twenty and three of them won the World Championship with one runner-up. Maybe it's the saunas that keep them fit and well.

Or the women...

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On 2/25/2024 at 9:26 AM, jrs said:

It's a bit frightening eh, I'd slot in at number 25, I haven't seen Gemini around the forum for a while but I think she slots in at number 16 in these days of equality.  

Gem is still active on Facebook.

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10 hours ago, norbold said:

Gem is still active on Facebook.

Thats good news . We'd better get her in the line up then on her speedy buggy  !  ;)

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9 minutes ago, andout said:

And another one gone as John Louis is no more.....very sad.

Oh no, that is shocking to hear that! I remember when John started, and he was the main reason we went to the 1970 Bonanza Best Pairs at Hackney. Very, very sad...

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Here is the updated list after the sad passing of John Louis. Getting scary now...

01 - Arthur Payne - 28/08/23
02 - Chum Taylor - 04/04/27
03 - Ian Williams - 04/08/31
04 - Ove Fundin - 23/05/33
05 - Dan Forsberg - 25/03/34
06 - Josef Hofmeister - 17/06/34
07 - Brian Crutcher - 23/08/34
08 - Mike Broadbank - 25/09/34
09 - Barry Briggs - 30/12/34
10 - Bob Andrews - 27/10/1935
11 - Reg Luckhurst - 11/11/1935

12 - Sverre Harrfeldt - 23/11/1937
13 - Leif Larsson - 16/02/1938

14 - Bjorn Knutson - 27/04/38
15 - Gunnar Malmqvist - 25/12/1940
16 - Andrzej Wyglenda 04/05/1941

17 - Jim Airey - 19/08/1941
18 - Bengt Jansson - 09/01/1943

19 - Anders Michanek - 30/05/1943
20 - Trevor Hedge - 30/08/1943
21 - Terry Betts - 15/09/1943
22 - Howard Cole 29/12/1943
23 - Martin Ashby - 05/02/1944
24 - Jan Simensen - 26/07/1944
25 - Zygfryd Friedek - 19/10/1944
26 - Jerzy Trzeszkowski - 10/01/1945
27 - Eric Boocock - 02/02/1945
28 - John Boulger - 18/06/1945
29 - Hasse Holmqvist - 18/06/1945
30 - Jim McMillan - 03/12/1945
31 - Soren Karlsson - 23/10/1946
32 - Ole Olsen - 16/11/1946
33 - Ray Wilson - 12/03/1947
34 - Doug Wyer - 16/08/1947
35 - Grigori Khlinovsky - 11/11/47

36 - Egon Muller - 26/11/1948
37 - Christoph Betzl - 13/02/1949
38 - Jiri Stancl - 18/11/1949
39 - Viktor Kuznetsov - 27/11/1949

40 - Georg Hack - 20/02/1950
41 - Marek Cieslak - 28/06/1950
42 - Alois Wiesbock - 31/07/1950
43 - Tommy Johansson - 21/10/1950
44 - Vladimir Gordeev - 30/11/1950

45 - John Titman - 26/01/1951
46 - Dag Lovaas - 25/02/1951
47 - Jan Verner - 03/03/1951

48 - Petr Ondrasik - 08/10/1951
49 - Phil Crump - 09/02/1952
50 - Henny Kroeze - 11/03/1952
51 - Valery Gordeev - 28/08/1952
52 - Dave Jessup - 07/03/1953
53 - Ales Dryml - 10/06/1953
54 - Scott Autrey - 09/07/1953
55 - Robert Slabon - 15/09/1953
56 - Peter Collins - 24/03/1954
57 - Larry Ross - 15/06/1954
58 - John Davis - 10/11/1954
59 - Finn Thomsen - 16/02/1955
60 - Mikhail Starostin - 24/02/1955
61 - Tommy Nilsson - 10/03/1955
62 - Jan Andersson - 07/05/1955
63 - Kai Niemi - 15/09/1955

64 - Jerzy Rembas - 18/04/1956
65 - Chris Morton - 22/07/1956
66 - Steve Bastable - 16/09/1956
67- Bruce Penhall - 10/05/1957
68 - Karl Maier - 24/08/1957
69 - Roman Jankowski - 05/10/1957
70 - Bo Petersen - 21/02/1958
71 - Les Collins - 24/05/1958
72 - Mitch Shirra - 27/09/1958
73 - Michael Lee - 11/12/1958
74 - John Cook - 18/12/1958
75 - Richard Knight - 26/05/1959

76 - Dennis Sigalos - 16/08/1959
77 - Erik Gundersen - 08/10/1959
78 - Hans Nielsen - 26/12/1959

79 - Olli Tyrvainen - 11/01/1960
80 - Phil Collins - 02/06/1960
81 - Sam Ermolenko - 23/11/1960
82 - Rick Miller - 12/01/1961
83 - Jeremy Doncaster - 16/06/1961
84 - Tommy Knudsen - 09/11/1961
85 - Zoltan Adorjan - 15/11/1961
86 - Shawn Moran - 19/11/1961
87 - Peter Ravn - 16/03/1962
88 - Zenon Kasprzak - 10/05/1962
89 - John Jorgensen - 18/07/1962
90 - Antal Kocso - 22/12/1962
91 - Sandor Tihanyi - 28/04/1963
92 - Lance King - 13/08/1963
93 - Armando Castagna - 22/09/1963
94 - Kelvin Tatum - 08/02/1964
95 - Marvyn Cox - 11/07/1964
96 - Zdenek Tesar - 30/07/1964
97 - Mikael Blixt - 08/08/1964
98 - Paul Thorp - 09/09/1964
99 - Tony Olsson - 13/03/1965
100  Gerd Riss - 17/03/1965
101 - Conny Ivarsson - 15/04/1965
102 - Simon Cross - 31/05/1965
103 - Bohumil Brhel - 10/06/1965
104 - Slawomir Drabik - 06/02/1966
105 - Per Jonsson - 21/03/1966
106 - Andy Smith - 25/05/1966
107 - Jan Staechmann - 05/06/1966
108 - Ronnie Correy - 08/11/1966
109 - Jimmy Nilsen - 16/11/1966
110 - Brian Karger - 09/02/1967
111 - Jan O. Pedersen - 27/07/1967
112 - Craig Boyce - 02/08/1967
113 - Troy Butler - 22/09/1967
114 - Piotr Swist - 20/06/1968
115 - Todd Wiltshire - 26/09/1968
116 - Gary Havelock - 04/11/1968
117 - Stefan Danno - 10/02/1969
118 - Martin Dugard - 18/05/1969
119 - Gert Handberg - 30/05/1969
120 - Chris Louis - 09/07/1969

121 - Billy Hamill - 23/05/1970
122 - Greg Hancock - 03/06/1970
123 - Henrik Gustafsson - 14/08/1970
124 - Tony Rickardsson - 17/08/1970
125 - Mark Loram - 12/01/1971
126 - Tomasz Gollob - 11/04/1971
127 - Leigh Adams - 28/04/1971
128 - Josh Larsen - 12/05/1972
129 - Joe Screen - 27/11/1972
130 - Jason Crump - 06/08/1975

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22 hours ago, chunky said:

Oh no, that is shocking to hear that! I remember when John started, and he was the main reason we went to the 1970 Bonanza Best Pairs at Hackney. Very, very sad...

I’m about 6 weeks behind Ray Wilson (33).  Yikes! It gets you thinking.

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5 minutes ago, OveFundinFan said:

I’m about 6 weeks behind Ray Wilson (33).  Yikes! It gets you thinking.

What scares me is that I vividly remember watching six of the twelve OLDEST World Finalists race!

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