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Fact of the day
Frank Kugler won four Olympics medals in freestyle wrestling, weightlifting and tug of war at St Louis in 1904, making him the only competitor to win a medal in three different sports at the same Games. He claimed a silver medal in the heavyweight category in wrestling, bronze in the two hand lift and all-around dumbbell events in weightlifting and another bronze in the tug of war competition as a member of Southwest Turnverein of Saint Louis No. 2 team. He is recognised as an American by the International Olympic Committee although he was a German national at the time of the Games.
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Rogge to miss key events because of hip replacement surgery
Tuesday, 04 September 2012
September 4 - International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge is to have hip replacement surgery this week, it has been revealed. The IOC claimed the operation is "routine" and that the 70-year-old Belgian will be discharged from the hospital after a few days.
It means Rogge, a former orthopedic surgeon, will miss the Closing Ceremony of the Paralympics in London on Sunday (September 9).
The event is intended to be a finale for the whole of London 2012 and not just the Paralympics.
Rogge had attended the the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics in the Olympic Stadium last Wednesday (August 29).
He lso carried out several official functions during his short visit to the Games, including attending the Visa Paralympic Hall of Fame, where a group of Paralympic athletes and coaches were inducted during a special ceremony, and watched the swimming at the Aquatics Centre on the Olympic Park.
IOC President Jacques Rogge watches the swimming at the London 2012 ParalympicsRogge was elected as President of the IOC in July 2001 when he succeeded Juan Antonio Samaranch.
He was re-elected for a new term at the IOC Session in Copenhagen in October 2009.
But he will step down at the next Session in Buenos Aires next September, where his last major function will be to read out whether Istanbul, Madrid or Tokyo have been awarded the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.
The surgery means that Rogge will also miss an event in Germany tomorrow to mark the 40th anniversary of the Munich Olympics massacre.
A tribute to the 11 victims will be held at the Fuerstenfeldbruck air base, west of Munich, site of the tragic climax of the bloody hostage-taking by members of a radical Palestinian group "Black September".
Rogge faced international condemnation during London 2012 after he refused to hold a minute's silence during the Opening Ceremony to mark the anniversary.
As a conciliatory gesture, a minute's silence was held instead at the Olympic Village London for the signing of the Olympic truce on July 24.
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Denmark's Poul-Erik Høyer is the only non-Asian badminton player ever to win an Olympic gold medal, giving him a unique place in the sport's history. He is now set to become the first European President of the Badminton World Federation for 20 years with the aim of uniting the two continents, as he tells James Crook in this exclusive interview
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