It is Day 3 and I am already a day behind in writing this journal!
In the interest of full disclosure, I will turn 59 in a few weeks. However, I can't help but be drawn to the successes of the older athletes. Day 2 was a really great day for the "old folks". I wrote yesterday about the two luge athletes, 42 year old Russian Albert Demchenko and 40 year old Italian Armin Zeoggeler. Well, they hung on and won Silver and Bronze medals in Men's Luge, respectively. In addition, there were four other 40+ year olds who performed well on Day 2:
40 year old Norwegian Biathlete and Olympic legend Ole Einar Bjoerndalen surprised most people (although perhaps not himself) in winning the Men's 10km Sprint. This tied countryman Bjorn Daelie for the most medals ever by any Winter Olympian. He now has seven Gold medals in this, his sixth Olympic Games.
41 year old German Speed skater Claudia Pechstein missed a Bronze medal in the Women's 3000 meter by about 1.7 seconds. Claudia was trying for her 10th Olympic medal - in fact, we saw her win a Silver medal in this same event in Nagano in 1998. Her first Olympics was Lillehammer in 1994.
41 year old Japanese Ski Jumper Noriaki Kasai finished 8th out of 61 jumpers in the Men's Normal Hill competition. While Kasai has only a single Silver medal in his career, this is his seventh Olympics!
41 year old Cross-Country skier Giorgio Di Centa finished 12th out of 68 in the Men's 15km Classical/15km Free Skiathlon event. Giorgio was part of the legendary battles between the Italian and Norwegian teams in the Men's 4x10km Relay races in Salt Lake City and Torino. He has two Gold medals and one Silver medal going into his fifth Olympic Games in Sochi.
There are huge challenges to remaining a world-class athlete beyond the age of 40. Part is physical; injuries heal more slowly and more work is required to maintain the same level of fitness. But perhaps an even bigger part is psychological. It is natural to begin wondering if you are "over the hill" after a bad workout or bad performance. But the bigger question is "When am I going to get on with the rest of my life?". I heard an interview with US mogul skier Hannah Kearney after she finished what was, for her, a disappointing third place in Women's Moguls and announced that she was going to retire. She was asked how she could retire when, at 27 years old, she was still in her prime. She said that she had other things that she wanted to do with her life. She knew that if she committed to staying in the sport for another four years her sole focus would be the training necessary to stay at the top - and another four years would be gone before she could start on anything else.
As the years go by, the amount that you've given up in order to train gets bigger and bigger. For women, their biological clocks start going off. Although some women have had children and then gotten back to an elite level, this is a strain that many bodies cannot handle. And even if they are able to get back to their previous fitness level, the time spent away from their children is yet another strain. There is also the financial strain.While a few athletes, like Bjoerndalen, make enough money from sponsors to have a comfortable life, most athletes exist at a subsistence level - enough money to pay for food and training, but not much else. They have to worry about how they will make a living after sports and probably begin to feel that any additional time spent in their sport is not worth giving up time to transition to a new career.
So when you see athletes like Albert, Armin, Ole, Claudia, Noriaki and Giorgio, who love their sports enough keep competing past age 40 despite all of the obstacles, I hope that you will give them a special cheer. They have surely earned it.
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