Gustaf Lindh

{{short description|Swedish modern pentathlete (1926–2015)}}

{{More citations needed|date=March 2025}}

{{Distinguish|Gustav Lindh}}

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{{Infobox sportsperson

| name = Gustaf Lindh

| image = Gustaf Lindh.jpg

| caption = Lindh during the 1948 Winter Olympics

| full_name = Gustaf Allan Lindh

| nationality = Swedish

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1926|05|21|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Liden, Sundsvall, Sweden

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2015|09|03|1926|05|21|df=yes}}

| death_place = Stockholm, Sweden

| medaltemplates = {{MedalCountry | {{SWE}} }}

{{MedalSport|Modern pentathlon}}

{{MedalCompetition|Olympic Games}}

{{MedalGold|1948 St. Moritz | Winter Pentathlon}}

}}

Gustaf Allan Lindh (21 May 1926 – 3 September 2015)Swedish Olympic Committee records was a Swedish former modern pentathlete who competed in the winter pentathlon in the 1948 Winter Olympics and became the event's sole winner.

Winter pentathlon was a one-time event solely held at the Olympic Games in 1948 in St. Moritz. Sweden had four participants, including future Olympic champion William Grut. Grut, Claes Egnell and Bertil Haase were about ten years older than Lindh and at that time the dominant athletes in winter pentathlon, but Lindh went on to defy expectations and caught up. He won the shooting and riding with the only flaw being a sixth rank in the downhill event. His teammate Haase won the downhill and the 10 km cross country, but did not finish tops in shooting, fencing and riding. Grut showed a balanced performance, but Lindh finished a point ahead of him and Haase. The fourth Swede, Egnell, broke his leg in the downhill, and had to abandon the competition in fourth place.{{cite web|url=http://www.la84foundation.org/6oic/OfficialReports/1948/ORW1948.pdf |title=Rapport Général sur les V^es Jeux Olympiques d’hiver St-Moritz 1948 |publisher=Comité Olympic Suisse |author= |accessdate=2010-06-25 |year=1951 |language=French, German |format=PDF |pages= 72–74}}

Like all other participants, Lindh was also a member of the armed forces. At age seventeen, he had joined the Swedish Army in Östersund because of the lack of educational opportunities during World War II. He attended military school (Swedish: volontär–, konstapel– och furirskola) as a furir (Private First Class) and excelled in winter sports. Already in his third appearance in a Winter Pentathlon in 1946, he won the Swedish championship and thus qualified for the Olympic Games. In autumn 1948, he was dismissed from the military and began training in the field of energy technology at the Tekniska Fackskolan (Technical Vocational School) in Sundsvall, then worked as an engineer and designer for high-voltage lines. He continued his sports activities until a shattered jaw after a horse riding accident in Stockholm forced him to retire in 1954 and set an end to his career.{{cite web |url=http://www.lidenstidning.se/09_april_00/gustaf.shtml |title=Guldolympier från Boda |publisher=Lidens tidning – www.lidenstidning.se |author=Arne Johansson |accessdate=2010-06-25 |date=2000-04-09 |language=Swedish |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170429201718/http://www.lidenstidning.se/09_april_00/gustaf.shtml |archive-date=2017-04-29 |url-status=dead }}

Lindh spent some years in the United States, went back to Sweden at the end of the 1960s and lived since in Viksjö, Järfälla northwest of Stockholm. He passed away in Stockholm in 2015.