Agence France Presse

Karachi, April 21:

The world’s oldest Olympic medal winner, Pakistani field hockey player Feroze Khan, has died, family members said on Thursday. He was 100 years old. “Khan died here peacefully and without any illness,” his son Farooq Feroze Khan told AFP in Karachi. Khan, a skillful inside right and centre forward, won a gold with pre-independence India at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Holland. Born in Jalandhar, India, Khan started playing hockey using a tree branch. He left the game after having a “fall out” with Indian selectors and migrated to Pakistan in early 1950s, where he served as a coach and national selector. Former Pakistan hockey captain Islahuddin Siddiqui termed Khan’s demise a “great loss” not only for Pakistan but for the world sports community. Khan celebrated his 100th birthday on September 9, 2004 and was recognised as the oldest known living Olympic medal winner by the IOC. He took the title after James Rockefeller of the US died in early 2004. Rockefeller had won a gold medal in rowing in 1924 Paris Olympics. “I am proud to be 100 and am going great. This is ample proof of the fact that discipline and individuals with sporting habits can live longer,” Feroze told AFP last year.