Youngest-ever Olympic medallist is mystery French boy who has never been publicly identified

It has been described as "the biggest Olympics mystery of all".

Back in the summer of 1900, at the Paris Olympics, a so-called "unknown French boy" became the youngest Olympic medalist in history, when he was remarkably pulled from the crowd to participate in one of the events.

That's right. The boy in question, who some historians believe was around eight years old, is believed to have participated as the coxswain for the gold-winning mixed team in the men's coxed pair rowing competition.

He joined Dutch rowers Francois Brandt and Roelof Klein in the rowboat, after the pair realised that Hermanus Brockmann, an adult coxswain, was too heavy.

In fact, the unidentified boy was so light that Brandt and Klein had to add weight to the boat for it to maintain balance, but their outrageous idea worked, as they beat their nearest rivals by two-tenths of a second to claim gold.

After winning the race, all three posed for a photograph before the mysterious child disappeared back into the crowd, never to be seen again by the wider public.

As mentioned above, historian Hilary Evans described the identity of the boy as "the biggest Olympics mystery of all", while author David Wallechinsky called it "the great mystery of Olympic history".

"People think they've made a breakthrough every decade or so and it feels like it's within reach, but we've never managed to solve it," Evans told VoaNews.

Wallechinsky, meanwhile, says "there just aren't that many large mysteries anymore" in Olympic history. "The first reason this stands out is the photograph. Who is this guy?" he told AFP. "And secondly, was he the youngest person to win an Olympic event?"

"You would never have that happen now," Wallechinsky added. "Every athlete's got a profile."

Such was the mystery, the only known photograph of the boy was discovered by Tony Bijkerk, who spent almost 50 years trying to uncover his identity.

The picture that was discovered by Tony Bijkerk, 50 years later. Image credit: Wiki

To this day, nobody knows who the youngest Olympian in history is.