How Results Vary Knowingly

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday today (Wednesday) to two Olympic champions born approximately 555 miles (893 km) apart.

For one of these two athletes, you can fill in the two blanks to give you a good clue: "This person was the first _______ __________ to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field."

No hurdles were involved in their Olympic gold medals.

The older person was six years old when the younger athlete was born.

These two did not compete in the same Olympic Games.

Their total age today is 106 years and they competed in a total of three Olympics.

One of our birthday athletes was born on a Wednesday 56 years ago today.

All three of the Olympics they competed in were held on three different continents.

This may not be easy, but I bet someone knows who these Olympic champions are.

Please name our birthday athletes for this last Wednesday of February.

[Olli]

There are rather few clues, except for those concerning the initials. However, if I fill in the blanks as "Finnish Woman", the H. R. might be Heli Rantanen, who won the javelin in Sydney and might be about 50 years old now. The other one should be a 56-year old European V. K., but right now I feel my head is too empty...

Edit: I meant Atlanta, of course, not Sydney.

[Olli]

Did some research and found out who the VK is. I think this is really difficult. The only usable hint is that he/she was born not too far from Finland (the 555 miles or 893 km), but there are so many possible directions...

[bambam1729]

I looked it up and I never even heard of the VK person. That's unusual for me with an Olympic champion

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday (50) yesterday (Wednesday) to Heli Rantanen and very good, Olli. Rantanen was sixth in the Barcelona (1992) women's javelin and then took the gold medal four years later in Atlanta. The other birthday athlete is not so easy.

[richh]

VK is 56 and would have won gold in 1988. If Bambam wasn't familiar with him, then it's likely he/she was Eastern Bloc - and not too big a jump to a relay gold medallist. The USSR won the 4x100 in Seoul. I saw them run that year in Leningrad [as it was then] - Muravyev [a quite good curve runner from 1978 onwards], Pokofyev [a 110h finalist in 1980], Savin [a Kazakh who ran 10.15 that year], and Vladimir Krylov, a winner of the European title over 200m]

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday (56) yesterday (Wednesday) to Vladimir Krylov and nice going, richh. I wasn't sure if anyone would get Krylov. He ran the second leg on the Soviet Union's winning four by 100 relay team in Seoul (1988). Very well done, richh. Krylov was born about eight months before the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. Now, we are approximately five months from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

[Trickstat]

Krylov was the somewhat surprising winner of the European 200 title in 1986 but I was actually first aware of him at 400m.