Laddie Bakanic

Laddie Bakanic was a member of the New York Turnverein. However, she was not from the Turnverein school of gymnastics, instead having been taught in the Sokol school, so at the time of the Olympics she was representing the Bohemian Gymnastics Association. Bakanic was born to Charles and Sophia Hniz, Czechoslovakian immigrants who owned a tailor shop in New York. Her father was a gymnastics instructor and was President of the Bohemian Gymnastics Association Sokol, and taught Laddie from a young age. In 1937 Laddie won the Sokol Girls Junior Championship and in 1946 was Sokol Senior Champion. She was Metropolitan AAU Junior Champion in 1941, placing second in the Metropolitan senior championships in 1944. She worked as a gymnastics instructor at the New York Sokol Hall, for the New York Central Railroad, and for IBM in Armonk, New York.