PARIS -- Charles Coste, the world's oldest living Olympian and a cycling champion, has died. He was 101.

The French presidency said in a statement on Tuesday that Coste died last Thursday.

Coste won the team pursuit gold medal at the 1948 Olympic Games in London at the famed Herne Hill velodrome. He returned to the spotlight last year as the second-to-last bearer of the Olympic flame for the 2024 Paris Games.

Emmanuel Macron's office said Coste was "until his final breath, the tireless messenger of a certain idea of sport."

Coste moved the Paris crowd as he carried the Olympic torch, dressed all in white in a wheelchair in the rain. He lit the torches of French Olympic gold medalists Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec, who teamed to light the cauldron during the rain-soaked opening cerem

See Full Page