Emanuel Löffler

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Wikipedia

Emanuel Löffler
Emanuel Löffler in c. 1934
Personal information
Born(1901-12-29)29 December 1901
Meziříčko, Moravia, Austria-Hungary
Died5 August 1986(1986-08-05) (aged 84)
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Gymnastics career
SportMen's artistic gymnastics
Country
represented		Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia
Medal record
Men's gymnastics
Representing  Czechoslovakia
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place1928 AmsterdamVault
Silver medal – second place1928 AmsterdamTeam
Bronze medal – third place1928 AmsterdamRings
World Championships
Gold medal – first place1930 LuxembourgRings
Gold medal – first place1930 LuxembourgTeam
Gold medal – first place1938 PragueTeam
Silver medal – second place1934 BudapestTeam
Silver medal – second place1930 LuxembourgFloor
Bronze medal – third place1930 LuxembourgAll-Around
Bronze medal – third place1934 BudapestAll-Around[1]

Emanuel Löffler (29 December 1901 – 5 August 1986) was a Czech gymnast. He competed for Czechoslovakia in the 1928 Summer Olympics and in the 1936 Summer Olympics.[2] Additionally, he won several individual and team medals throughout the 1930s at the World Championships.

Löffler in 1936. Of the 6 Olympics and Worlds between 1928 and 1938 to which Czechoslovakia sent male gymnasts, Loffler competed at all but one of those – the 1931 World Championships. He was the bronze medalist in the all-around at both Worlds (1930 and 1934) immediately surrounding the 1931 one.

Löffler made his Olympic debut at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, doing very well in the men's individual all-around competition where he placed 10th in a competitive field of over 80 gymnasts. In the ensuing quadrennium, he stamped himself as a favorite to do extremely well at the next Olympics in Los Angeles. Probably his greatest single accolade, at least as an all-around competitor, was that he secured the title of all-around champion of the 1930 Slavic Falconry Association Championships in Belgrade. On the final day of the men's all-around competition, which was June 24th, his total of 192.70 points in the all-around competition put him above 2nd and 3rd place finishers Josip Primožič and Jan Gajdoš who, respectively, took 2nd place with 191.25 points and 3rd place with 187.50 points. Throughout the course of the competition, the topmost group of competitors went back and forth in the standings; it was Löffler's performance in the 100 meter hurdles event that clinched his victory over the rest of the competitive field.[3] At the 1930 World Championships which were less than a month later, the all-around podium was the same 3 individuals, but in a different order, as Primožič became all-around champion, Gajdoš placed 2nd, and Löffler took 3rd (as well as the rings title and a 2nd place finish on floor, also helping his team to the team title).

Surprisingly, he seems to have been absent[4] as a competitor at the 9th Prague Slet in 1932 where he would have been one of the topmost domestic competitors. This was an event that occurred on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Miroslav Tyrš, held from June 12th-29th and July 2nd-6th,[5] and was a monumental festival with “180,000 spectators…130,000 gymnasts…[a] parade with 65,000 marchers…[and] advanced gymnastic skills” that registered, over the week-long event, “a million spectators”.[6] Unfortunately, due to the worldwide depression, the Czechs did not send a team to compete at the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, so Löffler lost a great chance to compete on the biggest stage for the sport at a time which was perhaps a peak opportunity for him.

A consistent mainstay of his Czechoslovak team from the late 1920s through the 1930s, having competed at every Worlds/Olympics from 1928-1938 where there were Czechoslovak male gymnast entrants, (except for the 1931 Worlds from which he was conspicuously absent), Löffler encountered extreme misfortune at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, paralleling exactly the extreme misfortune of Janina Skirlińska, Löffler's 1934 World All-Around Bronze Medalist female counterpart from Poland who, exactly like Löffler, finished in 40th place here.[7]: 874–875  (Skirlińska, like Löffler, was a consistent competitor at both her national championships, as well as at the World Championships as, at the next worlds in 1938, where, as the highest-finishing non-Czechoslovak competitor at those games in Prague, Czechoslovakia, she placed 4th.)[8]

Löffler performing on Pommel Horse at the 1938 World Championships, with his Czechoslovak teammates observing, including 1938 World All-Around Champion Jan Gajdoš, seated 2nd from left, and 1931 World All-Around Champion Alois Hudec seated and appearing between Löffler’s feet.

References

  1. ↑ Artistic results 1934 USA Gymnastics [dead link]
  2. ↑ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Emanuel Löffler". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 10 November 2012. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  3. ↑ "Takmičenja za slovensko prvenstvo" [Competitions for the Slovenian Championship.]. Sokolsky Glasnik (in Slovenian). Vol. 1, no. 15. 9 July 1930. p. 6. Retrieved 28 August 2025.
  4. ↑ Macanović, Hrvoje (14 July 1932). "Utakmice Saveza Slovensko Sokolstvo" [Slovenian Falconry Association matches.]. Sokolsky Glasnik (in Slovenian). Vol. 3, no. 27/28. p. 11. Retrieved 28 August 2025.
  5. ↑ Senkus, William M. (28 August 2018). "1932 - IX – Prague". alphabetilately.org. Retrieved 28 August 2025.
  6. ↑ "1932 - IX – Prague". sokolmuseum.org. Retrieved 28 August 2025.
  7. ↑ Organizing Committee for the 11th Berlin Olympiad. "The XIth Olympic Games Berlin, 1936 Official Report (Volume II)". Retrieved 2 May 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ↑ Macanovic, Hrvoje (30 July 1938). "Setsko gimnasticko prvenstvo 1938 u Pragu" [World Gymnastics Championships 1938 in Prague.]. Sokolsky Glasnik (in Slovenian). Vol. 9, no. 26–29. p. 34. Retrieved 11 January 2021.