Saturday, August 16, 2008

38? 41? Congrats to New Old Olympic Champs

When you get up the morning and are stiffer than you've ever been. When it takes another 10 minutes just to stretch. When you get those strange new aches and pains, nothing heartens the soul more than you see athletes crash the age barrier. While my kids wondered why anyone would want to watch someone run for 2 hours, I enjoyed watching Constantina Tomescu Dita from Romania win the Olympic Woman's Marathon. She's an amazing 38 years old!

Then there's 41 year old American Dana Torres who won 3 silver medals in the 50 meter freestyle and 400 meter relay. Talk about being in incredible shape. Getting a silver by 0.01 seconds is simply incredible.

As much fun it is to watch Michael Phelps win his 8th gold or Usain Bolt blow out the 100 meter race, knowing that age truly doesn't mater is truly inspiring.

2 comments:

Nigel Cordeiro said...

I hear you. I'm feeling the aches and pains already, and I loved reading about both these events.

Rajiv Parikh said...

Thanks for the comment.

Having run a couple marathons, I could feel the emotion on each one of their faces. When you feel good (Constantina - gold), you can actually sprint the last couple of miles. Even when your done, you feel like you can go for even longer. I felt that way when I ran NY. Then there's just gritting it out like Koma the 5th place Kenyan who tried and tried but couldn't catch up. For me, that was Mumbai. Regardless, these athletes have inspired me to run more - that is, after I fix my disc.