* Marie Provaznik; Defected to U.S. After Olympics

Marie Provaznik, 100, a leader in Czechoslovakia’s gymnastics movement who defected to the United States after leading her women’s team to a victory in the 1948 Olympic Games in London. Mrs. Provaznik was a director of the Sokol (the Czech word for “falcon,” symbolizing freedom) movement formed in 1863 to bring athletes into an army of sorts that symbolized a democratic resistance. She defected the year that a Communist government came to power in her country and taught physical education at Panzer College in New Jersey while establishing additional Sokols in the United States. In Schenectady, N.Y., on Jan. 11.