Johanna Quaas

Johanna Quaas (Geißler ; born 20 November 1925) is a German gymnast who, on 12 April 2012, was certified by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest active competitive gymnast.

At the age of 86 when breaking the record, Quaas was a regular competitor in the amateur competition Landes-Seniorenspiele (State Senior Games) in Saxony.

Johanna Geißler was born 20 November 1925, in Hohenmölsen, Germany.

She was an Active Child and often would climb tall bars and roll on the mats.

She began gymnastics at an early age, first competing at about age ten, but soon her family moved to a different part of Germany, temporarily ending her participation in competitions.

When she was eleven, she began Nazi Germany's required social service work for girls during World War II during which she worked in farming and took care of the children of another family.

After completing the compulsory social service, she trained as a gymnastics coach in Stuttgart, finishing in 1945 and moving to Weißenfels.

She was unable to work in gymnastics at that time, however, because it had been banned in East Germany during the first two years of post-World War II Allied occupation.

Instead, she took up team handball while in Weißenfels, learning and practicing it until the ban on gymnastics was removed in 1947.

In 1950, she studied at the University of Halle to become a sports teacher.

After passing the teaching exam in 1950, she became employed at the Institut für Körpererziehung (Institute for Physical Education) where she trained sports teachers and co-authored the university textbook Gerätturnen (Apparatus Gymnastics).

That same year, she competed as a part of the gymnastics team of HSG Wissenschaft Halle (later called SC Wissenschaft Halle) along with Helga Speck (Buchmann) and Rosemarie Neutsch (Kirsch).

Although gymnastics was no longer banned in East Germany, Quaas continued to play handball as well and was a member of the team that won the Eastern German Championship in 1954.

Quaas turned her attention to coaching youth girls' gymnastics and, with trainer Siegfried Bräutigam, led the team to become German Youth Champions in 1957.

Then, in 1961, she began training gymnasts at SV Halle (Sportverein Halle) (then called SC Chemie Halle).

Her gymnasts included Barbara Dix-Stolz and Christel Felgner-Wunder, who finished fourth place in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

In 1981, at age 56, Quaas returned to active gymnastics in a "manner suitable for senior citizens" and began competing in the German gymnastics festivals Senior group.

It was at the Harzer Bergturnfest (Harz Mountain Gymnastics Festival) in Blankenburg where she resumed competing in 1982.

The next year, she won the GDR Gymnastics and Sports Festival for the first time in Leipzig.

In 2000, the German Gymnastics Association reopened championships for senior athletes, and at the German Gymnastics Festival, she has won the title of German Senior Gymnastics Champion eleven times in a row in the 21st Century.

At age eighty, Quaas was an active competitor and trainer at SV Halle.

In 2011, she ended her participation in national championships, and in 2012, she was still a regular competitor in the amateur Landes-Seniorenspiele (State Senior Games) in Saxony.

She became known worldwide when on 26 March 2012, YouTube user LieveDaffy uploaded two videos of Quaas performing gymnastics routines: one on the parallel bars and one on the floor.

The clips became viral videos, and within six days of posting had generated over 1.1 million views each.

In addition to being recognized by Guinness World Records, Quaas has received the Nadia Comăneci Sportsmanship Award from the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Quaas became known worldwide when on 26 March 2012, YouTube user LieveDaffy uploaded two videos of the 86-year-old training during the Tournament of Masters in Cottbus, one on the parallel bars and one of a floor exercise routine.

The clips became viral videos, and within six days of posting had generated over 1.1 million views each.

German and international newspapers and TV stations reported on Quaas, and she was invited to appear on the German TV show Gottschalk Live.

Her story also was covered in at least 188 Chinese newspapers.

, the parallel bars video had received over 3.7 million views, and the floor video over 3.8 million views.

On 12 April 2012, Quaas received an entry in the Guinness World Records as the world's oldest active competitive gymnast.

Additionally, on 2 November 2013, at the 28th Cottbuser Turn-Memorial (Cottbus Gymnastics Memorial), she won what she then said was her last gymnastics competition.

According to senior gymnast Helmut Wetzel, the purpose of the Memorial is to "'commemorate those who are no longer there and honor those who keep themselves fit and capable of everyday life through gymnastics on the apparatus until old age'".

She was invited by the International Gymnastics Training Camp and the American Turners New York to perform her bars routine on the latter's float in the 57th German-American Steuben Parade on 20 September 2014.

In June 2016, she again announced that she would compete one final time that August at the traditional Jahnturnfest (Jahn Gymnastics Festival) in Freyburg.

She continued to start on the floor exercises, bench, parallel bars, and high bar.

Although not during a competition, in April 2017, she performed a parallel bars routine on a men's Olympic set at the 8th International Ageing Asia Innovation Forum in Singapore.

After a torn biceps tendon in 2018, she stopped performing active or competitive gymnastics, but she could still stand on her head at age 95.

She has developed a bed gymnastics routine which she performs every morning and has made the routine available on YouTube and DVD published by Wissner-Bosserhoff.

She had planned to participate in the 98th Jahnturnfest in August 2021 using a bicycle, but on Whitsun of that year, while taking a recreational bicycle ride in her original hometown of Hohenmölsen, she crashed and suffered a femoral neck fracture for which she required surgery.