Discover the legends of athletics in our regular feature On the Shoulders of Giants!
Micheline Ostermeyer
On the 4th August 1948 after winning Shot Put Gold in a new Olympic record (13.75m), French athlete Micheline Ostermeyer celebrated by first performing Beethoven’s iconic piano sonatas at her Team Headquarters and then going on to play in a concert with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall.
Ostermeyer secured legendary sporting status at the London Olympics by winning Gold in both the Discus and Shot Put and winning Bronze in the High Jump. A great-niece of the French author Victor Hugo and a niece of the composer Lucien Laroche, Ostermeyer married a world-class athletics career with being an elite musician. The Calais native began learning piano at the age of 4, spent the war years performing weekly half-hour piano recitals on Radio Tunis before graduating in 1946 with first prize in piano from the National Conservatoire in Paris.
Even in an era when the Olympic Games celebrated the Arts, medals were awarded across Literature, Music, Fine Art and Architecture in 1948, this type of excellence in two very distinct cultural areas was astonishing.
However, celebration of this union wasn’t universal and Ostermeyer had to fight to convince the Parisian musical establishment that a young sports idol could also perform with celebrated orchestras. On one unforgettable evening, Ostermeyer responded to growing criticism by playing three major piano works one after another - Brahms' D minor concerto, César Franck's Symphonic Variations and Liszt's concerto in E flat. This incredible act of strength, stamina and skill cemented her reputation and quietened any dissenters.
The arts and athletics are often considered to be opposites. This stereotypical view of disciplines that cover a hugely wide variety of activities is often compounded and exaggerated in popular media. However, upon even the quickest examination of this view, we find that the similarities between the traits required of an artist and athlete tend to outweigh the differences.
Both artist and athlete share a singular determination to learn their craft, they have the passion to pursue excellence and they share the creativity to adapt, modify and incorporate new approaches to ensure they excel in their chosen area. Above all they tend to have one shared attribute – deferred gratification. Deferred gratification is the ability to resist the temptation of an immediate reward in favour of a more valuable and long-lasting reward later. Both artist and athlete hone their skills over long periods of time before presenting them to the world through competition, performance or exhibition.
Micheline Ostermeyer’s dual trajectory of excellence was, she suggests, built around athletics as “an essential complement to her art.”
Leading into the 1948 Games, Ostermeyer was an accomplished High Jumper and Shot Putter. But by the late Spring, either through a self-realisation or the insight and advice of a coach or fellow athlete, Ostermeyer began to look at how her athletic prowess would enable her to be competitive in the Discus. With the same dedication and commitment that she had applied to her musical practice, Ostermeyer now began to master a new discipline. A 3rd place finish in the French trials ensured Ostermeyer would get to compete in all three of her events in London.
In her all blue attire, sporting large sunglasses and with an oversized number ‘948’ pinned to her back, Micheline Ostermeyer looked at ease standing in the centre of Wembley Stadium on Friday 30th July 1948. It was the final of the Women’s Discus competition and the London crowd were fixated on the action unfolding in front of them.
Italian Edera Cordiale-Gentile had put aside some early worries to throw 41.17m and move into pole position heading into the final round. With no Soviet Union, German or Japanese athletes competing, Cordiale-Gentile was the pre-games favourite. Her anxious demeanour throughout the competition was in stark contrast to the relaxed Ostermeyer. And just as the curtain was about to fall, Ostermeyer, with perfect tempo, produced her best throw of the competition, 41.92m, snatching Gold in the most dramatic circumstances.
Micheline Ostermeyer was the first French woman to win an Olympic athletics medal, her performance in London only surpassed by Fanny Blankers-Koen (4 Golds). It would be another 20 years until Colette Besson would win Gold for France (400m at Mexico ’68). Ostermeyer's athletics career ended in the early 1950s. She spent the next 15 years touring as a concert pianist before taking up a permanent teaching role in Normandy.
“Sport,” she said, “taught me to relax; the piano gave me strong biceps and a sense of motion and rhythm.”
Tadhg Crowley
24 September 2024