Joaquín Blume

The son of a German gymnastics teacher, Joaquín Blume was Spain’s top gymnast in the 1950s. Because of political reasons, he was not able to win more international titles than he did. Spain boycotted the 1956 Melbourne Olympics following the Soviet response to the Hungarian Uprising, and Blume was also unable to go to the 1958 World Championships. These were held in Moscow, and Spain did not maintain diplomatic relationships with the USSR. Blume was able to compete at the 1957 European Championships, which he dominated. He won the all-around (beating Yury Titov), the parallel bars, rings and pommel horses, and gained a silver medal in the horizontal bar. Blume’s life was cut short in a plane crash in early 1959, when he died along with his wife and other members of the Spanish gymnastics team. Blume, who won Spanish titles from 1949 until his death, was later honored with a Blume Memorial in Barcelona.