Of course some bodies—especially athletes' bodies—don't do what they once did as the years go by, and it takes almost a superhuman amount of drive to keep that inner competitive flame burning for a decade, if not just within the four-year gap between Olympics.
So most of the 10,500 athletes who came to the 2016 Rio Olympics are on the young-by-any-standards side, the youngest being 13-year-old Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh—who was still years away from being born when the oldest competitor in Rio went to her first Olympics. And though some of the events that boast the more seasoned competitors aren't as taxing on the body as others, every single one of the older Olympians deserves the utmost respect for their dedication and discipline as they prove that there is no reason to stop doing what you love (and kick butt at) so long as you want to keep doing it. First off, meet Oksana Chusovitina, the other gymnast everyone's talking about. Though really there's no need for introductions, since she's been at every Summer Olympics since Barcelona in 1992—five years before Simone Biles was born.The 41-year-old athlete started her Olympic career competing for the Soviet Union (the gold-winning Unified Team in 1992); then represented Uzbekistan in 1996, 2000 and 2004; and then Germany in 2008 and 2012. Her best individual finish was a silver in the vault in 2008—and that is the event she will be competing in again on Sunday (for Uzbekistan once again) in Rio after ranking fifth in qualifying.
"I am feeling good," Chusovitina, the 5-foot-tall oldest Olympic gymnast in history, said in an interview last month. "On the podium, everyone is the same whether you are 40 or 16. You have to go out and do your routine and your jumps. But it's a pity there are no points for age."
Staying healthy has been key, of course, but other than that...
"I have no pain, no problems," added the now seven-time Olympian, who is also mom to a 16-year-old son. "The toughest for me is to wait until the next training." Asked how her unprecedented endurance has been possible, Oksana said, "I don't know how I stay fit, I think you have to ask my mother."Also making history in Rio is U.S. cyclist Kristin Armstrong, who briefly retired after the London Games but is celebrating her 43rd birthday today one gold medal richer after winning her third straight Olympic time trial.
The mom of 5-year-old son Lucas (and one of the many athletes who have a day job off the bike, as community health director for St. Luke's Health System) is the oldest female cycling medalist of all time and is the first American woman to win an individual event in three consecutive Summer Olympics. (Speed skater Bonnie Blair won three straight 500-meter golds, but her second two came in 1992 and 1994, when the IOC was adjusting the Winter Olympics rules. And she was only 30 in 1994.)
"It was probably the hardest journey that I've been through," Armstrong told NBC Sports after her emotional finish, "that's why I think that we keep coming back, trying to get to the pinnacle of sports, which is the top step of the podium. Each and every day my team around me, my family, sacrificed so much for me to be here. I sacrificed so much, and the emotions—I still have to pinch myself, but there was the emotion of exhaustion, the emotion of 'I can't believe this,' and the emotion of so much excitement that it happened.
"And people have asked me, over and over, 'Why? Why am I back?' And it's because I can. And I showed it today and I'm so proud, and I'm so excited that I won my third gold medal. It's a historical moment in sports, for women in the Summer Games, in the U.S."So maybe horseback riding seems a little posh now. Still, the fire to compete among the world's best has to be there, so that's why it's hats off to Mary Hanna of Australia, who, at 61, is the oldest competitor at the Rio Olympics—followed closely by British show jumper John Whitaker, who just celebrated his 61st birthday Aug. 5.
"Every time I have done the Olympics, I've thought, this is probably the last time I will do it; but, after the last time, I thought: I am going to keep going with this because I feel fit and healthy and why shouldn't I? So, here I am," the grandmother of three, who will compete in the team and individual dressage events, told Australia's ABC News. This is Hanna's fifth trip to the Olympics, her first being the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta (she was not in Beijing in 2008).
Asked what it meant to him to be chosen to his sixth Olympic team, John Whitaker cheerfully told London's Daily Express, "It means I'm old!" He added, "No, seriously, this means a lot. The Olympics are the pinnacle. I feel lucky that I can still have a go at my age. Most sportsmen get probably one or two chances to go to the Olympics."
No comments:
Post a Comment