Two Girls, One Boy

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday today (Wednesday) to an Olympic champion who did not compete in the Olympic hurdles.

This birthday person competed in two Olympic Games and won an Olympic medal at both Games.

Our birthday athlete set more than one world record during an outstanding career.

Born 79 years ago today, this champion was only 60 years old at death.

The spouse of our birthday person was also an Olympic gold medalist.

Some say this champion could have won a second Olympic gold medal at the age of 26, but it was not to be.

A fairly famous pianist and comedian shares the same initials as our birthday individual.

You might know that this fairly famous person was born about 25 years before our birthday athlete and died about nine years after our birthday champion.

Don't worry about the pianist and please name our birthday athlete on this 109th anniversary of the day the Titanic hit a large iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.

[Olli]

Hmm, the pianist-comedian might be V. B. and Valeri Borzov's spouse is Olymic gold medallist, but Borzov is much younger, so it's not him...

[tandfman]

When you say a famous pianist and comedian, I immediately think of Victor Borge, which leads me to guess high jumper Valeriy Brumel.

[Olli]

Valeri Brumel might be closer to the age, but I don't know about his spouse. At least he broke world records, so he is my guess.

[Olli]

Oops, tandfman beat me with 4 minutes, while I was thinking of other V. B.s.

[DoubleRBar]

Valeriy Brumel was born 79 years ago today. Nice job, tandfman. Brumel took the silver medal in the high jump at the 1960 Rome Olympics and the following year he set the first of six world high jump records (four of them in Moscow). He won the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo and the following year (1965) he was in a serious motorcycle accident in Moscow which resulted in 29 operations on his leg. After this accident, Brumel turned to acting and to writing. His second wife (Yelena Petushkova) won an Olympic gold medal at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in equestrian (mixed dressage, team). Valeriy Brumel was only 60 years old when he died in January of 2003. I always feel very fortunate to have been able to see him jump in person.

Thank you tandfman and Olli.