It’s never too late to dig out runners and stretch the legs

The stories that emerged from the European Senior Games in Poland this last week would put those of us camped on the couch of an evening to shame

Starter for 10: who was the oldest of all the competitors at the various major sporting tournaments held this summer? To be honest, we’d be surprised if Jimmy Magee himself knew the answer to this one.

Greek goalkeeper, Kostas Chalkias, was the most senior of the 368 footballers at the European Championship but, at just 37, he was a mere babe in the wood compared to some of the veterans who turned out in London a month or two later.

Australia’s Libby Kosmala was 70 when she lined up her sights for the shooting event at the Paralympics and Japan’s Hiroshi Hoketsu had a year extra on his passport when he rode Whisper around the North Greenwich Arena in the Olympics.

Impressive, no doubt about it, but Alina Wieczoriewicz trumped them both.

The Polish woman was 72 when she jumped, (figuratively, perhaps) into the pool to compete in the 200m freestyle at last week’s European Senior Games in Poland. That she trailed in last after six minutes of breaststroke is neither here nor there.

Wieczoriewicz was one of 1,500 entrants competing at the second edition of this specialised event — the youngest of whom were relative saplings at just 45 — and one which is attempting to replicate the success of the National Senior Games (NSG) in the USA.

The first games in America were held in 1985. Over 100,000 people took in the ceremonies at the St Louis Riverfront Arch where Bob Hope presided over matters and it wasn’t long before the likes of the New York Times and Good Morning America were taking notice.

The event has kept growing ever since, despite the IOC’s frankly sniffy objection to the organisation’s use of the term ‘Senior Olympics’ which has since had to be dropped, and the next chapter will be written in Cleveland, Ohio next year.

Today, the NSG is a considerable non-profit organisation dedicated to motivating active adults to lead a healthy lifestyle through the senior games movement and the Summer Games and it’s showcase has grown into one of the largest multi-sport events in the world.

The foundations of the European project were laid at a conference on ageing and sport in Ghent, Belgium in 2004 when Ton Kienhaus from Holland and Bill Bankhead, who was the then president of the NSG, got to talking over a few drinks.

Sport was in Kienhaus’ blood. He had played handball for Holland, coached the game extensively and worked in the sports sector for the local authorities in Zeeland and, for the next five years, he struggled to get his new labour of love off the ground.

When the Dutch government stumped up €1.2m in funding — just before the downturn — he was in business. Kienhaus made four trips Stateside to see the National Senior Games and each time he returned blown away by the size and scale of the movement.

“There were something like 15,000 people competing,” he told the Irish Examiner this week. “It was amazing. American people are very different to European people in terms of how active they are and how crazy they are about sport — in a good way.”

He was still sure the idea could catch on here. The first European Senior Games were held in Holland three years ago and the latest, in Warmia-Mazury in north-east Poland, attracted 1,500 competitors from 16 countries across 10 sports.

Ireland was represented by a pair of athletes in the track and field but some of the most memorable scenes were witnessed away from the sporting arenas and at the conference on ageing and physical activity which was held midway through the event.

“There were some very interesting stories at the conference,” said Kienhaus. “There were pictures of people who had been nearly dead and who had made amazing recoveries due in part to physical activity, which is actually one of the best kinds of medicine.”

That the second Games should fall in 2012 was apposite as this has been designated the European Year of Active Ageing, and the Irish Sports Council’s latest Sports Monitor Report has revealed that older people are more active now than in previous generations.

What the Senior Games tells us is that it is rarely too late to dig out those old runners and stretch the legs and the stories that emerged from Poland this last week would put those of us camped on the couch of an evening to shame.

Wieczoriewicz, for instance, was 60 years of age before she learned to swim and Kienhaus, who is 63, competed in the golf tournament despite the fact that years of jumping up and down on hardwood handball courts left him with no option but to invest in two artificial hips.

They may be no spring chickens but this movement is cleary in its infancy.

Contact: [e-mail] Twitter: @rackob