Gustaf Lindh

Gustaf Allan Lindh ( born May 21, 1926 in Liden, community Sundsvall ) is a former Swedish modern pentathlete in the Winter Pentathlon.

Gustaf Lindh is the first and only Olympic gold medalist in the Winter Pentathlon. This competition was exclusively at the 1948 Olympic Games in St. Moritz in the program. Sweden, with four participants, including the later Olympic champion in modern pentathlon, William Grut. Grut, Claes Egnell and Bertil Haase were sometimes more than ten years older and at that time the dominant athletes in the Winter Pentathlon, yet he was able to prevail against the favorites. Lindh won the shooting and the final riding for himself and had just finished sixth in downhill skiing a bad score. His teammate Haase won the downhill and the 10 km cross-country although the two ski disciplines, but was weaker in the shooting, fencing and horse riding. Grut showed in all disciplines balanced performance, nevertheless, Lindh sat with one point ahead of him and by Haase. The fourth Swede, Egnell, broke in the downhill leg and had to give up lying the race in fourth place.

Like the other participants was also Lindh Army veteran. At the age of seventeen he had volunteered for the army in Östersund, there was wartime hardly an apprenticeship to get. As a volunteer for the non-commissioned officer career ( Furir ) him good winter sports were offered there. Already in his third race in the Winter Pentathlon 1946 he won the Swedish championship and qualified for the Olympics. In the fall of 1948, he finished his military service, began training in the field of power engineering at the Tekniska Fackskolan ( technical school ) in Sundsvall and then worked as a designer for high -voltage lines. In addition, he was more active in sports, but suffered in 1954 in a riding accident in Stockholm a double jaw fracture. After this accident, he had to end his career.

Lindh spent several years in the United States and has lived since about 1970 in Viksjö, Järfälla northwest of Stockholm.