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    Roelof Klein

    Jew Score:
    5

    I0

    O1

    K4
    June 7, 1877 – February 13, 1960

    We've told a lot of Olympic stories over the years, but this one might be our favorite of all time... and it doesn't involve any Jews! (As far as we know...)

    Dutchmen Roelof Klein and Francois Brandt competed in the coxed pair in the 1900 Olympics in Paris. They advanced to the final, when they realized: they had no chance of beating the French.

    So they hatched a plan: swapping the cox. Theirs, Hermanus Brockmann, weighed a massive 60 kg (132 lbs). So Klein and Brandt did the logical thing: replaced him with someone lighter. For that, they grabbed a random French boy off the street.

    Let us repeat: the Dutch rowers, before the Olympic final, replaced their coxswain with a random French boy! This made them lose 27 kg in weight, but those kilograms obviously mattered: they won the race by .2 seconds! This made the French boy, pictured in the middle here, an Olympic gold medalist. Here's the kicker: over a century has passed, and still, no one knows who this boy was.

    So, what's this story doing on our website? Well, Klein, despite the potentially Jewy last name, wasn't Jewish. Neither was Brandt, who became a bishop. But what about the French boy? We can't be sure, right?

    Verdict: Not a Jew.

    May 23, 2018

    See Also

    Nathan Cohen

    Elie de Poliakoff

    Zoe De Toledo

    Bob Moch

    Benjamin Spock
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