French cyclist Jeannie Longo is competing in her eighth Games at the age of 49 and it is the second Olympics for Israeli marathon runner Haile Satayin whose passport says he is 53.
Dr. Michael Joyner, an anesthesiologist at the U.S. Mayo Clinic who studies the effects of ageing on athletes, said normal "physiological" ageing starts at 30 but athletes can delay this until their late 30s or 40s with prolonged, intense training.
He said lab data showed that for physiological factors associated with endurance sports the decline is about 10 percent per decade starting at 30 but this can be halved with continued hard training, especially if it remained intense.
"If you look at top performers in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, the volume of training (hours per day) is sometimes down, but they keep the intensity high. They usually also do things to prevent age-associated declines in muscle mass," he said. ..." ...
"All things being equal the person who can put forth a maximum effort and at the same time relax has a real edge. A lot of it is learning how to compete in a relaxed way when the pressure is on," he told Reuters. [Link]
This says to me that after 30, you can slow down one's degrading endurance issues by 50%. Therefore, at age 76-years old, which is the average life expectancy, you would have the oxygen saturation ability of an average 53-year-old. That seems accurate to me.
Oh, and then there is this "chick" named Dar Torres... ;-)
2 comments:
Yup, and Olympics number 9 for Canadian equestrian Ian Millar, who was born January 6, 1947!
(Although Adam van Koeverden will be a great flag bearer, I was really hoping Mr. Millar would get the nod.)
But let's not forget Millar is going to be jumping one of two possible choices - which at thirteen and ten years of age aren't exactly old. I'd also point out in most of the instances cited by Reuters these senior citizens are involved in 'sports' where most of the physical work is done by something other than the 'athlete' (archery, shooting, and horse jumping). I put these sports on par with curling as an athletic endeavor. Haile Satayin is an Ethiopian-born marathoner who in major competitions rather than try to medal (he's hopelessly outclassed) runs for position: running conservatively in the beginning to ensure finishing and then late in the race picking up his pace to overtake blown runners. Now Jeannie Longo is completely different story - being acclaimed as the greatest female cyclist in history. But then again, perhaps it isn't Longo's present abilities which are the key to her current Olympic success but rather the possibility women's cycling isn't the most contested of Olympic sports.
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