  In the present paper we derive two well-known integrable cases of rigid body
dynamics (the Lagrange top and the Clebsch system) performing an algebraic
contraction on the two-body Lax matrices governing the (classical) su(2) Gaudin
models. The procedure preserves the linear r-matrix formulation of the ancestor
models. We give the Lax representation of the resulting integrable systems in
terms of su(2) Lax matrices with rational and elliptic dependencies on the
spectral parameter. We finally give some results about the many-body extensions
of the constructed systems.
