Triathlon

This week - a fun series with a post each day about triathlons.

A triathlon is usually a race, where each competitor swims, bikes, and runs one continuous effort. The first person to finish all three is considered the course time-winner. The order is often swim first, then bike, then run, although order can change depending on the length and kind of course, and opinions of the officiating body.

Some triathlons are relays. One person enters each part, for example the first person swims, then their teammate continues the run. A race consisting of a run, bike, then run again is considered a duathlon, even though the competitors do three parts. "Run-bike" and other duathlons will be covered in future posts, as will summer and winter biathlons.

The first modern triathlon was possibly a race in 1920 or so, in France, called "Les Trois Sports" (the three sports). Within that decade, several more three-event races of various distances and names followed.

In the 1980s, different big triathlons became more popular - including the several Ironman distance races and comparable races, called full triathlon and long distance, by other organizations. The "Ironman" brand and name is highly protected and can't be used by anyone else, a topic for another post. These are usually 3800 m swim (2.4 miles), 180 km bike (112 mi), and 42.2 km run (26.2 mi). In 2005, the World Triathlon Corporation started the Ironman 70.3, also known as a Half Ironman.

Triathlon became an Olympic event at the Sydney Games in 2000. Olympic Distance is considered a short triathlon - 1500 m swim (0.93 mi), 40 km bike, (24.8 mi), 10 km run (6.2 mi). The Olympic Triathlon is about half the bike and run distance, and a slightly shorter swim, of what is usually called a half-triathlon.

The many other triathlon events can vary in length and level of organization, depending what is available to the organizers. Distances may conform to standardized organizational rules, or vary with whatever length the available course allows. A kids' summer camp may use their pool or lake and a dirt road, track, or field nearby. A town may organize their waterways or harbor and roads. Sometimes the world comes together to host international events.

In some smaller-scale races, participants can show up on race day, sign up, and go. Larger races require registration and briefings before race day. Big triathlons require qualifying times in previous races and large entrance fees.

Coming Next - Ironman.


Related:

Swim
Sixteen Miles of Cold Water
Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part I
Swimming and Pulmonary Edema Part II
Better Stretches for Swimming - Cook Strait Update
Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training

Bike
14,000 Miles on a Bike - Herniating and Fixing Discs
Stronger Pain-Free Wrists When Biking
Freed From Pain, He Rides Again
Tour De France 2008 and Increasing Aerobic Capacity

Run
Prevent Main Factor in Back Pain After Running and Walking
Do Military Chants Help Running? - The Jody Calls
Fast Fitness - Run Faster
Does Running Ruin Your Joints?
Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?

Labels: aerobic, biking, endurance, Olympics, running, speed, swimming, triathlon

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Disability Awareness Doesn't End With Summer Paralympics Sept 6-17th 2008

The Summer Paralympics Games of 2008 in Beijing China close September 17th. These are Olympic games of athletes with a disability. Information and networking doesn't end with the Games. Here are some sources:

• An irreverent site from the BBC is Ouch. Why is the site called Ouch? The writers answer: "We spent literally months trying to come up with a name that wasn't too patronising (bbc.co.uk/smile_through_the_tears) or too suggestive of hideous '90s positivity (bbc.co.uk/Able2Jump2TheSky)…"

• Fun, inspiring photos from the official Beijing Paralympics photo site.

• Link describing Summer Paralympic Events.

The Paralympics and the many world and local sports events and classes for people with a disability remind that physical and mental training is important for fitness and personal development for everyone.


The graphic shows Paralympic logos from past Games. The next and 10th Winter Paralympics will be held in the year 2010 in Vancouver Canada. The 11th Winter Games will be in Sochi Russia, in 2014.

Related Articles:

• Paralympics Torch to Light on August 28
• Thirteenth Paralympic Games Begin
• Not Old for the Olympics Part II
• Not Old for the Olympics Part I
• Summer Olympics 2008 Coming

Labels: disability/ability, Olympics

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Thirteenth Paralympic Games Begin

Categories of athletes:

• Wheelchair: Spinal cord and other injuries or disabilities requiring use of a wheelchair.
• Amputee: Partial or total loss of at least one limb.
• Brain Injury: Cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke, and conditions affecting balance and muscle control.
• Visual: Partial to total blindness.
• Les Autres (The Others): Athletes with other physical disabilities such as multiple sclerosis or congenital deformities of the limbs, dwarfism, and others.
• The category for Intellectual Disability is currently suspended following events entered by deception at the Sydney games in 2000, and is being re-evaluated by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

Here are the events and their symbols:


Related Articles

• Paralympics Torch to Light on August 28
• Summer Olympics 2008 Coming

A request by Healthline has come in to not use labels. They state,

"In part of our ongoing testing, we’ve discovered that the addition of labels at the end of blogs is actually having a negative impact on the blogs' performance on search engines."

Programmers, do you have suggestions?

Labels: disability/ability, Olympics

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Paralympics Torch to Light on August 28

The flame for the 2008 Paralympics Games will be lit on August 28 at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing China.

The torch relay continues nine days until the start of the 13th Paralympic Games on September 6 in Beijing.

Paralympics Games are an international competition held every four years for physically challenged athletes, following the Olympic Games. The prefix "para" means along with, or parallel to, the Olympics Games.

The Paralympic Games logo includes the red, blue and green symbol based on the Chinese character "Zhi", three strokes representing Heaven, Earth and Human, and the symbol of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in the same colors.

Labels: disability/ability, Olympics

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Olympic Calories for Michael Phelps and Everyone Else

I didn't intend to cover this topic until several reporters deluged me in one week. They said I must answer immediately because they had deadlines, gave specifics I must answer so they can be paid for their article (while I supply everything with no remuneration), hours I must contact them at my expense, perhaps without them knowing my time zone placing it in the middle of the night, and so on.

Two reporters seemed to want the usual myths, not corrections or understanding. In numerous interviews, I earnestly debunked urban legends and explained facts, then found their article quoting my name wasn't anything I said. With apologies to readers waiting patiently for earlier topics, here are some of the questions:

1. The reporters wanted a comment that it was uncommon or abnormal that Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps eats up to 10,000 calories a day when training. It is not a mystery. If athletes train hard over many miles, they need more calories.


2. It is not unusual to eat large quantities of food and calories, athlete or not. Eating a great deal is nearly customary in the West, certainly in the US. Many people eat many thousands of calories a day more than they burn, and so, gain weight. The only trick seems to be to get people to stop eating that much.


3. The reporters asked what special techniques are needed to get that many calories. None. Look around restaurants and grocery lines. A typical fast food entrée, with French fries and milkshake can total 5000 calories in only one meal. A "salad-bar" with dressings, sauces, and usual Western choices can start at 1000-2000 calories a plate full and go upward from there. A bag of crisps, chips, or nuts can total 1000 calories in one snack. Exercisers and dieters lulled by slick advertising add hundreds of calories with sports shakes and bars. Ordinary people can eat thousands of calories per meal that they really don't know about, plus snacks. It is not a math mystery that they eat thousands of calories per day, and have extra body weight, regardless of other personal factors.


4. Another question was what made Phelps burn such an unusual number. It is not unusual for a swimmer or other endurance athlete to burn thousands of calories. When I trained swimming for various competitions I ate between eight and ten thousand calories a day myself, swimming five to seven miles a day. I posted about the mileage in Last October in Fast Fitness - Healthier Sports Shake.


5. Two reporters asked me to confirm an item from a National Public Radio interview, that once Phelps (or anyone) stops exercise, the body stops feeling hungry, therefore, someone not exercising will eat less. Clearly, this isn't so. People can eat too much regardless of exercise. You are not a cause-and-effect automaton. Food choices and overeating habits can occur separately from exercise habits. Days I didn't swim twice a day, miles at a time, I had to remind myself not to eat the same as when training. Now that I don't train like that, I can't eat like that. It is not increased age but that I do less. No mystery.


6. No it is not hard for most Westerners to eat - they just buy the food. No special eating techniques are needed. Overeating and eating when not hungry are common. One cup of nuts is about 800 calories. I can stuff about half a cup in a brimming handful. My husband Paul, a hard working carpenter who is taller and more muscular than Phelps, but about as lanky, fits almost a cup in his giant hand. We may scoop a handful while commuting on bike to work. Other people may eat handful after handful while watching television, totaling many thousands of extra calories a week.


7. It is not true that Phelps is "pure muscle" and no one is. Hopefully they have bones, and brains, and lungs, and some skin and so on.


8. It is not true that only muscle burns calories, or gender is the deciding factor. All your cells that are alive need to breathe and eat in various amounts, male or female. That is why a fat person, male or female, uses more calories everyday to feed all the extra. A fatter person may need more calories to stay at that higher weight than a smaller muscular person, male or female. Weight loss occurs when they do not eat enough to feed it all. Add a small amount of exercise over the day to do functional daily movement. See the lifestyle links at the end for more.


9. Resting metabolic rate is not mysterious, or fixed by gender or age. A car in idle uses gas, and people also burn calories even at rest with no exercise. Just like different size cars get different mileage, so do we. Adding suitcases in a car trunk needs more gas to tote them around, even though suitcases are not motive parts. A small to average adult may burn about 75 calories an hour, depending on size, to fuel all the cells to stay alive. Over 24 hours that is about 1800 calories a day. A smaller person may need less. A larger person may need 100 an hour or 2400 a day. When you exercise you use more.
   

There were more questions, taking me days to write. Until then, click these:

• Is Your Health Food Unhealthful?
• Metabolism - How to Lose Weight and Save Money
• Lose weight through lifestyle - What is "Fitness as a Lifestyle?" and How Often Should You Be Healthy? and Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle.
  
• For more on swimming and nutrition for hard endurance exercise click the label "swimming" under this post, or use the Fitness Fixer Index.

Labels: myths, nutrition, Olympics, swimming, weight loss

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Most Helpful Olympic Advice So Far

The commentators for US gymnast Justin Spring's great Olympic floor exercise routine last week told how Spring underwent months of rehabilitation for knee, ankle and other injuries. The commentators continued about his rehab, exercises, physical therapy teams, and surgeon. Spring landed the end of his difficult routine with straight-legged jolt. One of the commentators mentioned again about the surgeon who fixed the injury. The other commentator replied, "The surgeon should have told him to bend his knees."

The commentator is right. The best health care is not to collect money to cut and treat someone, but prevent the need for cutting them. Landing with a straight knee transmits impact to your spine, neck, ankles, hip, and knee joints. Landing with properly bent knees absorbs impact more through the muscles. Landing hard with a straight knee can push the upper and lower leg bones hard against the two tough pads in each knee called menisci (singular is meniscus) that help cushion each step.

Over repeated hard landings, holes and tears can bore through the meniscus. With repeated landings at an unhealthy joint angle, cartilage can overstretch or tear. The tough strap that crosses the middle of the knee joint, called the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), can overstretch or tear with repeatedly landing on a twisted knee. More on this to come. It is mostly an avoidable training error, not a gender issue as previously thought. Ankle wear and injuries can result from the same. Injury forces increase when the landing is on knee or ankles allowed to sway inward instead of maintaining motion at the midline. These injuries can heal without surgery. More on this in posts to come.

Sometimes injury results from a single high-force landing, such as a bad parachute landing, jumping from extreme heights, or a car crash where a passenger sitting with straight legs is propelled forward (or the engine backward) hard against their feet forcing compression past strength. An example is an ankle injury called a pylon injury, where the far end of the lower leg bone crushes.

Know the mechanism of injury so that you can get out and have fun, and do extreme sports while you move in ways that reduce unhealthful forces. Preventing repeated bad movement habits can also give your joints a larger margin for occasional unexpected dings.

1. Check what you do with your knees when you step or jump down. From small landings, bend knees a small amount.
2. Larger heights and circumstances (carrying a heavy backpack) can benefit from more shock absorption using the thigh and hip muscles with deeper bending. It should not be the knees that take up the shock of the bending. It should be the muscles of the hip and leg.
3. Keep effort on the muscles through how you position your knees. Letting them slide forward shifts weight to the joint. Keeping knees back by only sticking out the backside in back can shift weight to the lower spine. Keep knees back with neutral spine and you will feel the effort in the muscles.

Here is how - Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending.
Here is why - Why So Many Aerobics Injuries?
Here is an example to get started - Down the Stairs.
Knee position when jumping - Healthy Knees.
Posts on avoiding surgery.
Check comments and replies already present in posts for more.
Click the labels below each post for more Fitness Fixer posts about each topic.
Try fun books.

Labels: ankle, impact, injury, knee, Olympics, practice of medicine, repetitive strain, stairs, surgery

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Beijing Olympics & Martial Arts Class Teach Common Sense Cooperation

The opening ceremonies of the Beijing Summer Olympics were a quiet, powerful reminder of mutual cooperation as path to strength, beauty, and peace. Thousands danced in metaphor for healthy society - that we cooperate to create a masterpiece, and each individual is significant. Responsibility and support flow both ways.

Paul and I were in China in 2001 for a martial arts competition. I hope to post training stories with some of the motivating photos from there. Discipline and eagerness to do good were all around us. We haven't been back to China yet, although we live in other areas of Asia for part of each year. In many places where we live there, human, animal, and machine-powered vehicles of every description overflow the roads, in all directions at once, often with no traffic lights or signs to guide. Both lanes may flow in either or both directions at once. Turns occur any place needed at the moment. Problems are infrequent because people are taught cooperation from early age. It is an Eastern philosophy, way of life, discipline, and virtue. Words are not needed. Westerns who are not aware that cooperation and thoughtfulness is taking place mistake this highly evolved order for disorder. When tourists see someone coming their way, they may not not cede way or cooperate, but insist that others are in their way. Traffic accidents frequently involve tourists.

When I teach martial arts classes in the US, I teach beginning students something that startles them. If a blow is coming toward you, don't stand there and get hit. Move out of the way. Some students first insist on trying to bat my arm/leg/head out of the way with theirs. I tell them not to do that. If two arms hit each other, whose will win, theirs or the other person's? You don't know? Better to get out of the way instead. What if it is an incoming baseball bat. Or weapon. Or an opponent you have gravely misjudged,even if they only seem to be an old lady. In Zen the concept is called, "Don't be there." In common sense it is called "duck." Some beginners insist the air is theirs to stand in and they want to meet an incoming object with their body. Instead of ducking, or at the least, deflecting it without damage to any party (or maybe training some discipline and arm hardening techniques), they throw their arm up to meet mine, then depart class cursing and exaggerating to administration that they broke their arm, and that they were right to deliberately disobey the teacher who was teaching a valuable lesson called, don't hurt yourself or others. In class, I give the students a moving drill. They practice a specific footwork drill to keep them moving. I walk around the class - right in their way, one student at a time. They are confused. Some try to push or hit me to get me out of *their* way. Some try to stand still to resist, but get deflected off balance. This continues until one student remembers the point of the lesson. They get the smart idea to go *around* me. The message - polite, cooperation. No confrontation. No hitting someone in your way, or believing no one owns the ground but you. Just smile and say excuse me. It seems to be a titanic message to some.

Click the arrow to watch group traffic cooperation in this short movie from a street in Vietnam.

Paul and I are comically (to locals in the street) co-occupying a tiny front basket of a bicycle rickshaw. Locals routinely travel by pedicab, but our height and Paul's epic shoulders blocking the driver's view and feet at the same time caused so much merriment by on-lookers that it won us many new friends that day. The driver looked to weigh no more than 100 pounds (45 kilos), pedaling a steel bicycle weighting at least 200 pounds (90kg). In another post I will tell of Paul's and my ride on an Olympic bobsled on an actual competition track. A professional driver took first seat of the 4 man sled, and we put Paul in second seat, as it was the only place for his long legs. For new readers, Paul is almost 7 feet tall (2 meters, 13cm). We were supposed to have a 4G ride (4 times the usual pull of gravity on earth), but Paul's giant feet, it turned out, prevented the driver's elbows from moving enough to steer the 15 sharp turns. We got quite an extra ride - the wildest the driver said he ever had. To be continued in a future post on g-forces.

China posts to come - Athletes are afraid of the squat toilets, why some Chinese citizens wear masks, Eastern societal practices that promote physical health through advanced age, answers to reader questions that pile in, and more on Olympics and human potential.

• See if your questions are already here - Click the labels below for more posts on each topic.
• Find posts on your favorite topics: Click and bookmark the new Fitness Fixer Index.

Labels: g-force, martial arts, mind, Olympics, spirit, stress, video/movie, walking

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Olympic Fast Friday

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn some Chinese for the Olympics.

The Olympic ceremonies start at 8:08 p.m. on the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008. Eight is an auspicious number for the Chinese. Whether you agree or disagree with politics in the world, use learning about someone's language as a step to peace:

First lessons include "bei" - north, and "jing" - a capital city. Then you see that Beijing means Northern capital.

Here is some Olympic Chinese:

• Click labels below for posts on each topic.
• Find posts on your favorite topics: Click and bookmark the new Fitness Fixer Index.

Labels: fast fitness, mind, Olympics, swimming

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The Olympics, The Challenge

The Olympics begin this Friday. Reader Mike asked in the comments to the post Not Old for the Olympics Part II that in addition to other performance enhancements, is it fair to have superior inherited ability? In the Star Trek Next Generation episode "Peak Performance," a training exercise between two ships was deliberately mismatched in armaments, crew, and maneuverability. When the first officer chafed at this, asking what was the official's word for "mismatch" the reply was, "Challenge!"

Mike wrote,

"This was a great article pointing out the ethics of performance enhancement. Money, time, altitude chambers, and speed suits are all an advantage when others don't have them. Then, is it a fair race? I was hoping you were going to get to inherited ability … which brings up the issue that even when all food intake, psychology, training, and equipment are equal, genetics wins out, so how much pride can one take in his accomplishments knowing that a good chunk of one's success was a gift over which you can't overcome? After all, you can't make a quality chair if you're given just balsa wood! This reminds me that we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously based on the outcome of our athletic dominance over others. I should just try to improve my own performance against my previous performances."

In martial arts, the win does not always go to the taller or stronger person. Athletic ability needs numerous coordinated skills. If the outcome were always for the bigger or faster fighter, there would be no betting in boxing or any other sport.

Inherent ability doesn't always decide the outcome. It's not a matter of not being able to teach a pig to sing. My carpenter husband Paul can make a solid comfortable chair from balsa wood, paper, (even Jell-O™, he speculates, thanks to Mike's post) by dint of skill and love of his craft.

The "Peak Performance" episode emphasized, "The person in the superior position is expected to win. How one performs in a mismatch is precisely of interest. We don't whine about the inequalities of life."

• To learn how to build your spirit and body, regardless of what sport you play, or even if you do no sports at all, try the book Healthy Martial Arts.

• For a general look at "honest" and engineered training, try Rocky IV and Healthier Exercise.

• Don't give up if you don't want to - Why Not?

• Watch a short movie of Muay Thai in Her 90's.

• Good sportsmanship in daily life - Healthier Heart.

Get out there and train.

Labels: movie/media fitness, Olympics, performance enhancing modality, spirit

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Beware of Hype in Training Methods

In fitness, odd and sham training methods are repeated, often whether they are true or not. It's important to remember this. A good example of avoiding this pitfall came from Mark Spitz, who swam at the 1968 and 1972 Olympics. As of this writing in July 2008 he is still the only Olympic athlete to win a gold medal and set a new world record in each in each (individual) event he entered. In an era when other swimmers, male and female were shaving body hair, he swam with a mustache. Mark Spitz is quoted as saying,

"When I went to the Olympics, I had every intention of shaving the mustache off, but I realized I was getting so many comments about it--and everybody was talking about it--that I decided to keep it. I had some fun with a Russian coach who asked me if my mustache slowed me down. I said, No, as a matter of fact, it deflects water away from my mouth, allows my rear end to rise and make me bullet shaped in the water, and that's what had allowed me to swim so great. He's translating as fast as he can for the other coaches, and the following year every Russian male swimmer had a mustache."

Keep this in mind when you automatically believe various training techniques without thinking it through.

I couldn't get a copyright-free photo of Mark Spitz to use for this post. Readers have been asking for more pictures of Paul, so here he is, in the Hudson River:




Click and bookmark the new Fitness Fixer Index.

Labels: movie/media fitness, myths, Olympics, performance enhancing modality, practice of medicine, swimming

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Not Old for the Olympics Part II

Yesterday's post, Not Old for the Olympics Part I, told of athletes competing in the highest level athletic events over many years as they get older. The ability to keep physical skills by training is not new or unusual. To keep physical skills, you must continue to use and practice them.

One of my students, Leslie, was featured doing 30 pushups in the March post Are You Stronger Than A 67 Year Old Lady?


Leslie can now do 40 pushups easily, and says her goal is 45 for her 68th birthday this October. I didn't have a camera with me to record her 40 pushups last week in class before posting this post, but will try when I get back from the Wilderness Medicine conference.

Leslie says she wants me to tell all of you that she could not do any pushups when she started working with me. She says it was my training in functional daily movement that made the difference, instead of doing artificial exercises in "sets and reps" for isolated body parts. She says the last 5 of the 45 pushups are hard, but she perseveres and keeps smiling, knowing discipline needs training. Bookmark her movie so you can do your 30 pushups every day with her.

When Dara Torres made the news by qualifying for the Beijing Olympics, the first comments by the masses included that performance enhancement drugs were probably needed. Torres employs a head coach, a sprint coach, a strength coach, two stretchers who moved to Florida to stretch her daily, two masseuses, a chiropractor, a nanny, and household help, with costs estimated at least $100,000 per year, plus the support of family, friends, and good sponsors. You don't win an Olympics alone, but it does not require drugs to get better over years of training. Torres trains hard, and has a team of trainers and people who stretch her, using many of the conventional moves that "work" at the price of her 13 surgeries for injuries.

There are people who state that it is unfair and unethical to use performance-enhancing drugs, but they wear or allow a one thousand dollar engineered bathing suit like the new Speedo LZR. When I was competing, swim goggles were considered an unfair advantage. Mark Spitz won his record setting medals without even wearing goggles. When I was competing, it was considered unfair for an American athlete to earn any money from athletics. No sponsors were allowed. Athletes swept floors to earn money to compete. Today they are not only sponsored and advertised, pro athletes arrive at events with chauffeurs from their villas.

Is it fair to be taller, a trait which favors speed in swimming? Some who say performance-enhancing drugs are wrong will eat engineered food, and use expensive altitude chambers and other training devices. Is it fair to other competitors when one swimmer has a rich family who gives up all to support their dreams? It is considered unfair doping to use certain steroids to hasten healing of internal injuries and soreness from intensive training, but not if you use them to heal skin erosions from the same hard training. Drugs are vilified in some sports, glorified in others, and routinely used in the business and military world for increased concentration and competitiveness, and reduction of hunger and fatigue.

Debate continues about ethics. Two truths are important to remember - Performance enhancing drugs are not necessary to win or to achieve the highest goals of competition. There are women swimmers today who without any drugs are breaking records of men swimmers of the 70's who used steroids. Performance drugs are not healthy. The purpose of athletics is not just to mindlessly best the person next to you. A higher view is the beauty of clean healthy athletics.

Related Fitness Fixer on exercise and aging, and enhancing drugs:

• Exercise and Aging - Don't Limit the Patient to Limit the Pain
• Why So Many Aerobics Injuries?
• Human Growth Hormone
• Rocky IV and Healthier Exercise
• Metabolism - How to Lose Weight and Save Money

Labels: aging, drugs, Olympics, performance enhancing modality, swimming

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Not Old for the Olympics Part I

The 2008 US Olympic swimming trials were held June 29 to July 6 in Omaha, Nebraska, photo at left. New world records were set, including by a swimmer that the news likes to call old. Dara Torres is 41, not old for an athlete.

Swimming is the Olympic event that I trained for over many years. I have seen an assortment of training beliefs and procedures come and go, and hope to post on them as the Olympics begin August 8 in Beijing China. It may seem like a new idea that experience and years of training make you a better athlete, but it is not new to maintain skills, even improve as years pass.

Hiroshi Hoketsu, age 67, will compete in two equestrian events. He was born in Tokyo Japan in 1941.

Dominique D'esme Gerbaud, born 1945 qualified for the French equestrian team.

Rajmond Debevec born in Slovenia Yugoslavia in 1963 is now going to his seventh Olympic Games at age 45. He is an Olympic and world record holder in 50m rifle shooting events.

Laurie Lever, born 1947, will compete in individual and team horse jumping at 60 years old.

John Dane III, born 1950 in New Orleans, LA, will compete for the US at age 58, and Peter Douglass, born 1955 will compete for Barbados in sailing.

Juan Carlos Dasque, born 1952, will compete for Argentina in trap shooting.

Mark Todd, born 1956, has made the New Zealand Equestrian team at age 52.

Juha Hirvi of Finland, born 1960 will go to his third Olympics at 48, competing in Men's 50m Rifle Prone and Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions.

Canadian Donna Saworski, born 1960, made the fencing team.

Another Canadian, Leslie Thompson-Willie, born 1959, will row crew in the woman's eight, at nearly 49 years old.

Galina Belyayeva of Kazakhstan, born 1951, is scheduled to compete in shooting at age 57. Elizabeth Callahan of the US will compete in pistol shooting at age 58.

Jeff Hartwick, born 1967 qualified for pole vault. Romy Tarangul of Germany, also born in 1967, will compete in Judo at age of almost 41.

Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, pictured at right, is a French cyclist born 1958, who won three Tour de France races, the Olympic Gold medal in the Atlanta 1996 games, a bronze at the Sydney 2000 Olympics at age 41, made the 2004 Athens Olympics at age 46, and will compete in Beijing in the Women's Individual Time Trial and Women's Road Race at nearly 50 years old (birthday is Oct 31).

Sheila Taormina, born 1969, will go to her fourth Olympics this August in Beijing. She competed in 1996 as a swimmer, the triathlon in 2000 and 2004, and will compete in the Modern Pentathlon (five events) in Beijing, making her the first U.S. athlete to compete in three sports in the Olympics.


Al Oerter, picture at left, born 1936, won four consecutive Olympic gold medals in the discus in 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, setting Olympic records each time. At age 40 in 1976, he threw his personal best. At age 44, he qualified for the U.S. Olympics trials in 1980. That was the year of the US boycott of the summer games.

The legendary Oerter passed away last year. Thank you Mr. Oerter for your inspiration.


Tomorrow, Not Old for the Olympics Part II - more on aging, athletics, performance enhancing drugs.

Labels: aging, Olympics, swimming, Tour De France

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Summer Olympics 2008 Coming

The summer Olympics will begin this August. The Olympics are an international cooperative athletic contest held every two years, alternating winter and summer Games. Before 1992, the summer and winter games were held in the summer and winter of the same year, so that four years passed between each Olympic year, called an Olympiad.

Estimates on the date of the first recorded Olympic Games in ancient Greece vary around the early 800's BC, with indications of regular games held far earlier. The first events were foot races. Soon wrestling and the pentathlon (five events by one athlete) were added. More events followed.

The games and ceremonies emphasized reverence to heaven, ability of body and mind, plus nakedness and deliberate gore for the ratings (popularity). Olympics continued in Greece every four years for about a thousand years. After the Romans gained power in Greece, Emperor Theodosius I outlawed the Olympics in the year 393 AD because they (the Games) weren't Christian.

Fifteen hundred years passed. In 1894 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded to rekindle the Olympic games. In 1896, the first modern Summer Olympics was held in Athens Greece. Fourteen nations participated track and field, fencing, weightlifting, rifle and pistol shooting, tennis, cycling, swimming, gymnastics, and wrestling. No women were allowed to compete. The IOC director stated that including women would be, "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect."

The following Olympics in Paris in 1900 allowed eleven women to compete in lawn tennis and golf. This August, it is projected that athletes will compete in 302 events in 28 different sports. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Italy there were 84 events in 7 sports. Currently, 203 countries participate in the Olympics. This is higher than the 193 countries who presently belong to the United Nations.

There are debates whether countries or heads of state should boycott Olympics to make influential political statements. Several boycotts have been held by various countries over several Olympics. In many Olympic years, different political topics from war, to the interpersonal war of apartheid, to the status of the country of Taiwan, have been focus for boycott. This year it is position of the country of Tibet in relation to the host country of China. As one of the swimmers who felt the impact of the 1980 boycott because of events in Afghanistan, I know it is a difficult thing to decide either way. Consider this: today, Olympics are boycotted over wars. In ancient Greece, wars were postponed and ceasefires called to observe and honor the Olympics.

Labels: mind, Olympics, spirit

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