Erich Altosaar (14 August 1908 – 11 October 1941) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player. He was part of the national team that placed ninth at the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...

, where he also served as the Olympic flag bearer for Estonia. Altosaar graduated from a technical school in 1925, and competed for Tallinna Voitleja in 1922–27. He held national titles in

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

(1927, 1929, 1931, 1933 and 1935–39), basketball (1927, 1930–31 and 1941) and

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

(1930). In the latter sport he was playing for JK Tallinna Kalev when that club won the 1930 Estonian Football Championship. Altosaar played 16 international basketball matches for Estonia, and captained the national team at

EuroBasket 1939 The 1939 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1939, was the third FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA. Eight national teams affiliated with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) took par ...

, where it placed fifth. After 1934 he worked as an accountant and police officer. Following the Soviet annexation of Estonia, he was arrested in 1941 on charge of anti-Soviet activity and, on a decision of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

, shot in a

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

camp.

References

1908 births 1941 deaths Basketball players from Tallinn People from Kreis Harrien Olympic basketball players for Estonia Estonian men's volleyball players Basketball players at the 1936 Summer Olympics Estonian people executed by the Soviet Union {{Estonia-basketball-bio-stub