As my colleagues over at the Rings blog point out, there are some oldies but goodies at this year’s Olympics.
French cyclist Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, 49, after winning her 53rd elite-level title last month. (Jeff Pachoud/AFP /Getty Images)The list includes:
- Dara Torres, 41, American swimmer
- Jeannie Long-Ciprelli, 49, French cyclist
- Haile Satayin, 48 or 53, Israeli marathoner (his age depends on whether you use the age from his papers from Ethiopia, where he was born, or his Israeli passport)
- Luan Jujie, 50, Canadian fencer
- Susan Nattras, 57, Canadian trap shooter
- Laurie Lever, 60, Australian equestrian team
- Ian Millar, 61, Canadian show jumper
- Hiroshi Hoketsu, 67, Japanese dressage rider
Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic told Canada’s National Post that it’s not just the athletes’ physical strength, but their mental strength, that sets them apart.
“The message that these people tell us, whether it’s Gordie Howe, George Foreman, Dara Torres or any of these people, is that if people become obsessed with what they can’t do as they age, well then they won’t do it,” he told the paper. “These individuals are more interested with what they can do.”
Dr. Joyner notes that the physical capacity of most people is diminished at a rate of about 10 percent per decade after 30 years of age, while that of the extremely fit decreases at a rate of about 3 to 4 percent.
Read more about these amazing athletes on the highly-entertaining Rings blog here.
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22 Comments
Amazing, true, and they’ll be happier than the other athletes too.
— JesseWonderful, maybe. Dana Torres spends over $100,000 a year for therapists to work on her body, what do the others spend to keep their egos going.
— RichWe are all aged physical achievers in my family; runners, sailors, fitness buffs, and a climber who began a 7 Summits quest with Mount Everest at 40 and Vinson Massif, the 7th of the Seven Summits, at age 48.
You don’t get to spend a lot of time on the couch but it can be done. As well as natural physical talent, it takes a strong ego to keep going when your body says no more. That’s what makes the difference between the those who do, and those who don’t. Ask any medaled athlete, Olympic or Heisman.
— anon. E. mouseWell Rich (at 10:20) a hundred grand is nothing if a) you can afford it and b) it helps you to achieve a goal as monumental as being in the Olympics - especially at 41!
Reducing it down to an ego stroke is misunderstanding and, I might guess, coming from someone who can’t fathom the joy of physicality and winning.
As a person pushing fifty I am always amazed at the power of my own body and how much stronger and more fit I am today than when I was 25 and if a hundred grand pushed me into Olympic shape, believe me, if I had it I could think of nothing better to spend it on.
— moniqueRich, I think your comment is very mean-spirited. The Olympics selection is a meritocracy. You don’t get a handicapped score based on age, you compete with the best in the world. If you’re fast enough to make the cut, you do.
Dara Torres has been an Olympian many times over. As a 43-year old, I am thrilled to see someone close to my age who is still fast enough to be in the game. She may be an aberration, but she’s definitely an inspiration, and many people will be rooting for her.
— Mary OCheers to all the older athletes! The equestrian athletes are especially brave, since all equestrian sports, even lovely dressage, are definitely high risk. They are also true partnerships between human and horse, which adds an element of unpredictability. Strength, balance, and courage are required by both partners–what great qualities to strive for as we grow older.
— SMMRich…is it your $100,000?
— KatieResponse to Rich #2 …
Any athlete at the Olympic level, whatever age, is spending significant dollars in training, therapists, etc. Olympic figure skaters are paying anywhere from $50,000 on up, and most of them are darn young!
Getting to compete in five Olympics is quite an achievement - be you 41 or 101.
— LindaDara Torres, who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has been coddled since birth, has and has had for decades a ’support network’ costing obscene amounts of money, and it is VERY MUCH open to question whether her results are achieved without the benefit of undetectable drugs. Are #s 4, 5, 7, and 8 so ignorant that they have never heard of designer substances? ‘the clear’, for example, which was undetectable for years? Ask retired athletes. Ask Rowdy Gaines, or a number of other athletes who opine that drug tests catch almost no cheats. The naivete and imbecility of these responses to Rich’s extremely inoffensive observation speaks volumes.
— tempusHow about a follow-up story on the age range of the athletes competing in the Paralympics?
— Cherrie PinpinNot suprising….Where I play tennis (an athletic sport) there are far more people in their forties, fifties, and sixties playing (at a competitive level too) than players in their teens and twenties! And rather than encouraging our youth
— Vic the Brooklynite( at a time when the obesity rates for youth have sky rocketed ) to participate in the athletic sports, such as Basketball, Swimming, Running, and the Racquet sports, New York City spends over Eight million dollars to build a Junior Golf facilty for children between five and seventeen!
Do you think it’s political? Go figure!
Thanks tempus.
We like to think our Olympians are not government sponsored when nothing could be further from the truth. Research how many are trained at government (tax payer) expense as members of the Army at Colorado Springs, an Army that never sees duty in Iraq, an Army whose only purpose is winning gold medals.
Let’s return the Olympics to true amateurism with no government sponsored training, no sponsorship dollars and no pro athletes. It might not be as big a money maker for NBC et al but it would be the true meritocracy that the writers above think we have, but don’t.
— RichOh Please! Take a thousand athletes and spend that kind of money on every one and you’ll still have Dara Torres at the top of the list. Thousands of dollars are spent on every college athlete, and every olympic athlete.
Athletes get sponsored when they show athletic promise. I don’t see what the big deal is. I can’t think of a better way to spend that money. How much do you spend each year feeding yourself, going to the doctor, on a gym membership, buying clothes to work out in, getting massages etc.? It’s not cheap, and swimming is her job, of course she needs to spend money to stay in shape.
FROM TPP — Yes, I agree. It’s like saying Lance Armstrong only won because he had a sponsor. He got a sponsor because he had great potential, far more than most.
— ncaa athleteShe may have been born “with a silver spoon in her mouth” but it’s still been her putting in an incredible amount of training and sacrifice over probably decades at this point.
Sorry Rich and tempus, you come off sounding bitter and jealous.
And tempus “imbecility”? Now really.
My hat is off to not only these older athletes at the Olympic level but to the man and woman on the street running, biking, partaking in whatever their choice of sport is.
— female runner, lifter, purple belt in TKD, just turned 45Does anyone know where to find a comprehensive list of 2008 Olympic athletes over the age of 50?
FROM TPP — This is the best I could do.
— CuriousAll Olympic athletes -regardless of age- spend a tremendous amount of money on training, physical therapists, physicians, etc. For all but a few of them, it is their full time job. My hat is off to folks like Dara Torres! Age is just a number.
And for the record, someone in my marathon group is 73 –a veteran marathoner who competes in at least five marathons each year- and going strong. While not an Olympic athlete, he is an inspiration to us all. Go, Paul!
— BrookeBring on the 9 to 5 Olympics. The only athletes eligible work forty hours a week. And cheers to the oldsters, even the rich ones.
— AdamEveryone has been making some very good points here in this blog, INCLUDING Rich, particularly his thoughts about the importance of amateurs (”lovers of” sports, literally) in athletics . After all, the whole idea of the Olympics was, and could/should STILL BE, for the amateur athletes (note: in ice-skating, professionals are still NOT allowed to compete in the Olympics, and they’ve got that right). People might consider reading “The Amateurs” by the late and great David Halberstam; it’s a wonderful and elucidating true account of some remarkable, phenomenally dedicated amateur rowers who won Olympic gold, and about the BEAUTY and NECESSITY of amateurism in sports.
— FionaWhile I would never take away from what an olympic athlete achieves, I think I understand part of where Rich is coming from. When the NYTimes had its magazine article on Dara, I eagerly began reading it because the article was presented in the spirit of ‘here is a 40 plus athlete showing us what the body is still capable of as we age.’ Being 47, and finding myself tiring more easily after working out, I was very interested and hoped to be inspired.
Instead, I quickly realized that what Dara was ‘doing’ was completely out of the range of possibility for most people time-wise and financially, and I stopped reading about halfway through. I’m not taking anything away from her as an athlete, but it is misleading (and that’s being generous) to imply that these achievements are providing health insights that are relevant to most people. I know that’s not the purpose of your column here, Tara, but Dr. Joyner’s quote gave me the same feeling the Times article did–annoyance.
As to the money issue that’s been brought up in other comments, it’s clear to any parent whose child hopes to compete that olympic dreams are very, very expensive. Sports have evolved to develop master level skills younger and younger so children who want to play on a ‘fun’ team once they hit middle school are SOL. I think some of this plays into why teens are less active than younger children and the whole childhood obesity issue. We’ve turned sports into a very serious undertaking early on.
The athlete listed above I’d like to learn more about is Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli. Her expression and smile in that photo–she looks extremely comfortable in her skin–are intriguing. She looks like she’s got other things going on in her life besides cycling. And wasn’t the world’s longest-living woman French?
— francoisThe performance of Dara Torres and Longo-Ciprelli has been inspiring. Longo, considered the greatest cyclist ever, would possibly have gotten bronze but had a mis-shift of her bike’s gears late in the race costing a precious few seconds. Find me a runner, and the hypothetical trio would be a force in any mixed-entrant triathalon masters team and could take on the open men category!
For more on 40-somethings, there was a nice feature in a recent Best Life, a lad-type magazine (think Maxim, Men’s Health, etc.) aimed instead at 40-something married men (in other words, tips on flat abs, workouts, and sex tips but for middle-aged men). Say what you will about the editorial slant of the publication, but the article was insightful and talked about a very slight decline in any athlete past his/her 30s. The key is to maintain V02 max and muscle power and avoid typical social pressures (career, family concerns overwhelm most amateurs of that age). So the Joyner quote may be a simplification–a serious amateur can suffer only a slight loss provided he/she maintain their training focus and train some power work and V02 max.
“At 40, the average decline from peak for sprinters is 3 percent; distance runners, 4.1 percent; and swimmers, 2 percent.”
http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/The_Science_Riding_the_Storm_3.shtml
— JimI second Cherie’s posting: I’d like to hear more about the Paralympics myself, including the topic of aging athletes there.
I wish they had not excluded Oscar Pistorius from the Olympics, personally.
Also, I have competed in some ultra-distance running events (as a complete amateur) and quite often it’s people in their 30s-40s who win them. Endurance but also skill and mental fortitude surely are the key to these long (50K, 50 to 100 miles plus) races.
FROM TPP — Actually he wasn’t excluded. He did win his case, but then he didn’t qualify for South Africa.
— geppyTempus and Rich, you are right we should get back to the basics and drugs should not have a place in sports. Don’t forget, when your at that level you earn 10 of mil $ from sponsors and the cost of putting on the games and to compete in the games. Just to run in the Boston Marathon will set you back hundreds of dollars. However based on your response, I would guess 10 mil would not enlighten you on why we/they do what they do. Nor, would 10’s of mil, bring you to that level. 80% of the time you train and push your self to levels that defy the standards with no rewards other than intrinsic rewards, and then it is during the competitions that allow you to go that little extra. Sure ego plays a part in it. I would venture to say you both have large egos yourself. My advice is to push yourself to complete one marathon in less than 4 hours or better yet in less than 3 hours and then reevaluate your statements.
— Larry