ST. LOUIS – Mere hours remain to bid on a piece of shared sports history: a gold medal from the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis awarded to the Games’ first amputee.

The medal, awarded to St. Louisan George Eyser for rope climbing, is being auctioned off by the Boston-based RR Auction . As of this story’s original publication, bids have exceeded $50,000.

Eyser was born Georg Ludwig Friedrich Julius Eÿser on Aug. 31, 1870, in a small village just outside Kiel, Germany. When Eyser was a child, a train ran over his left leg. The leg was amputated below the knee. The exact circumstances surrounding the accident remain unclear to this day.

Eyser’s family immigrated to the United States in 1884, where they lived in Denver, Colorado. He became a U.S. citizen 10 years later. Eyser moved to St. Louis between 1902 and 1903, where he worked as a bookkeeper and joined the Concordia Turnverein Gymnastics Club.

Eyser qualified for the 1904 Summer Olympics , the first Games held outside Europe and the first in which medals were issued to first, second, and third place (trophies or cups were awarded in prior Games). The Olympics ran concurrently with the World’s Fair, also held in St. Louis, creating a chaotic event schedule. As a result, the gymnastics competitions were divided into two sets of events: the International Turners’ Championship in July and the Olympics Gymnastics Championship in October.

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Eyser performed poorly in July, finishing 71st in the all-around competition. He finished 10th in the nine-event all-around and last in three other events: the 100-yard dash, long jump, and shot put.

The October competition was a different story. Eyser netted six medals in one day (October 29): gold in rope climbing, long horse vault, and parallel bars; silver in pommel horse and the four-event all-around; and bronze in the horizontal bar.

He competed in all events with a wooden prosthetic attached above his knee.

For 16 years, Eyser was tied with three others for the most medals won in a single Summer Olympics.

Eyser competed in other international meets in 1908 and 1909.

He briefly moved to Los Angeles in late 1916 before moving back to Denver in the spring of 1917. Unfortunately, Eyser’s heritage was attacked as anti-German sentiment grew with the outbreak of World War I.

Eyser died by suicide in Denver on March 6, 1919.

Eyser remained the only person with an artificial limb to compete in the Olympics until swimmer Natalie du Toit of South Africa competed in the 2008 Summer Games.

The Concordia Turnverein club where Eyser practiced and honed his skills? It still exists as the Concordia Turners along Gravois Avenue in the Boulevard Heights neighborhood.

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