George Eyser

George Louis Eyser (August 31, 1870 – March 6, 1919) was a German-American gymnast who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics, earning six medals in one day, including three gold and two silver medals. Eyser competed with a wooden prosthesis for a left leg, having lost his leg after being run over by a train. Despite his disability, he won gold in the vault, an event which then included a jump over a long horse without aid of a springboard.

Biography

Eyser was born on August 31, 1870, in Kiel, Germany, as the only child of Georg Sophus Jasper Eÿser and Auguste Friederike Henriette Eÿser (née Marxen). When he was 14, his family emigrated to the United States (Eyser obtained US citizenship in 1894). The family first lived in Denver, Colorado, but George moved to St. Louis, Missouri, sometime around 1902–1903, where he worked as a bookkeeper for a construction company. There, he joined a local gymnastics club Concordia Turnverein Saint Louis. At some point in his youth, he lost most of his left leg, which had to be amputated after a train ran over it. It was replaced by a wooden prosthesis, which allowed physical activities such as running and jumping. A keen sportsman, Eyser pursued training, aiming for the 1904 Olympics.

Eyser competed in both sets and did poorly in the first one. He was placed 10th in the gymnastic 9-event all-around competition, which included 3 routines on both the horizontal bar and parallel bars, two on the pommel horse, and one on the vault. Eyser was 71st in another gymnastic all-around event, which included the same devices but a smaller number of routines. He also competed in the athletics triathlon but finished the last with the results of 8 m (26.1 ft) in shot put, 15.4 s in 100 meters sprint, and 4 m (13 ft) in the long jump.

Eyser performed much better in the second competition set. On a single day, October 29, he won 6 medals in total, of which 3 were gold (parallel bars, long horse vault, and 25-foot rope climbing), two silver (pommel horse and 4-event all-around), and one bronze (horizontal bar). His main rival was another American, Anton Heida, who also won 6 medals, 5 gold and one silver. Heida shared gold with Eyser in the vault, was second after Eyser on parallel bars, but won the horizontal bar, pommel horse, all-around, and team competitions. In the team competition, which was then held by the clubs, Concordia finished fourth.

Before 2008, Eyser was the only person with an artificial leg to have competed at the Olympic Games. Later, in 2008 Natalie du Toit, a South African swimmer who lost her left leg in a traffic accident, participated in the 10 km swimming marathon at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and finished 16th, and in 2012 Oscar Pistorius, a South African double-leg amputee runner, participated in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London in the 400-metre race and the 4x400 relay.

Later life After his Olympic success, Eyser continued competing for Concordia, with the club winning the 1908 international meet in Frankfurt, Germany, and the 1909 national meet in Cincinnati, Ohio. He died by suicide on March 6, 1919, in Denver.