Never too young or old for gold

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/08/2016 (3522 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a remarkable achievement when an athlete makes it to the medial podium at the Olympic Games. It’s even more remarkable when that athlete is barely old enough to drive a car but too young to celebrate with a bottle of champagne.

Which explains why Canadian teen sensation Penny Oleksiak has become the talk of the 2016 Summer Games in Rio.

On the opening weekend in Brazil, Oleksiak, who turned 16 on June 13, powered her way to two medals in the pool — a silver in the 100-metre butterfly and a bronze as the anchor of the Canadian women’s 4×100-metre freestyle relay team. The immediate success of the youngest member of the nation’s Olympic team stunned everyone, especially her. “I wasn’t really expecting it,” she told the media. “I was kind of gunning for a medal in 2020, but to get two here means so much to me.”

Oleksiak is an old-timer compared with Nepal’s Gaurika Singh, who at 13 years, 255 days, is the youngest athlete in Rio. She didn’t make it to the finals of the 100-metre backstroke, but made a huge splash just by competing.

They say age is just a number, but with the Games heating up in sun-kissed Rio, this is perfect time to check the standings on our gold-medal list of the Youngest and Oldest Summer Olympic Athletes of All-time:

5) The oldest male Olympians

There have been a handful of athletes who have spent their sunset years battling to get on the podium at the Summer Games. For instance, according to TopendSports.com, Arthur von Pongracz of Austria was 72 years, 49 days old when he competed in the equestrian sport of dressage at the 1936 Games in Berlin.

Another equestrian competitor, Japan’s Hiroshi Hoketsu, was 71 when he finished 40th in the individual dressage event at the London Games in 2012. Hoketsu, who turned 75 in March, was reportedly gearing up to compete in Rio, but was unable to make the Japanese team after one horse was euthanized and a second battled health issues.

The gold medal for the oldest Olympic competitor and oldest medallist goes to the incomparable Oscar Swahn of Sweden. At an age when most of us are worried about getting the seniors discount at the grocery store, the white-bearded Swedish sharpshooter was racking up medals. He competed in the running-deer shooting events, wherein competitors took aim at deer-shaped targets that moved along tracks.

During the 1908 Summer Games, at the age of 60, Swahn bagged two gold medals. At the 1912 Games in his native Sweden, at the age of 64 years, 280 days, he won gold with the single-shot running-deer team, and bronze in the individual double-shot event, making him the oldest gold medallist. He became the oldest Olympian when he competed at the 1920 Games at 72 years, 281 days. He won a silver medal, making him the oldest athlete to step on the podium.

Mind you, according to TopendSports.com, British graphic artist John Copley was just a month away from turning 74 when he won silver for his design “Polo Player” in the little-known Olympic arts competition that ran from 1912 to 1948. But, hey, Oscar had a gun.

4) The oldest female Olympians

If you get tired just tying up your sneakers, consider the career of Hilda Lorna Johnstone, a British equestrian legend who competed in the 1956, 1968 and 1972 Games.

In 1972, in Munich, just five days after her 70th birthday, she became the oldest British competitor and the oldest woman to take part in the Olympics. Her best finish was fifth place in the 1968 mixed dressage team event.

“She hadn’t planned to qualify for the Olympics nor had she read or practised the ‘ride off’ test of 27 movements for the Grand Prix individual ride off,” notes website Hay-Net.co.uk. “Yet, riding her little chestnut thoroughbred, El Farruco… they finished 12th, with an elegant performance featuring excellent extensions and smooth transitions.”

The honour of being the oldest female medallist and the oldest female gold medallist goes to American archer Lida Peyton (Eliza) Pollock, who participated in the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis at 63 years, 333 days.

Pollock collected two bronze medals in the women’s double Columbia and national rounds, then, as part of the women’s team round, she hit the bull’s-eye and won a gold medal. According to TopendSports, the oldest woman to claim gold in an individual event was British archery competitor Sybil (Queenie) Newall, who took the top prize at the 1908 Games in London at the tender age of 53 years, 275 days.

3) The youngest male Olympians

Remember what you were doing when you were 10? Delivering the newspaper? Trying to persuade your parents to let you stay up past your bedtime? Worrying about the pimple on the end of your nose?

Well, if you were Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras you were busy becoming the youngest confirmed competitor and youngest confirmed medallist at the Olympic Games.

At the astonishing age of 10 years, 218 days, Loundras was part of the Ethnikos Gymnastikos Sllogos team that won a bronze medal in the team parallel bars event at the 1896 Games in Athens. (It was the first modern Olympics and only 13 nations took part in the revival, with more than two-thirds of the athletes being Greek, and all of them male. Women competed for the first time at the Paris Games in 1900.)

Loundras’s team was one of three in the parallel bars event, and finished last, still earning a bronze. “Loundras subsequently served in both World Wars and reached the rank of admiral in the Greek navy,” notes the website InsideTheGames.biz. “He was the last surviving participant from those Games, which marked the revival of the Olympic movement, eventually dying in 1971 at the age of 85.”

It is possible, however, there was a younger competitor and medallist — believed to be a seven-year-old French boy who competed as coxswain for the winning Dutch coxed pair rowing in the 1900 Olympics. Before racing in the final, the regular cox was deemed too heavy, so the mystery boy was brought in at the last moment. “Only a photograph exists showing him with his two oarsmen… he may have been as young as seven,” says TopendSports. “It is not sure which of the coxswain was given the gold medal.”

The youngest confirmed gold medallist is Germany’s Klaus Zerta, who was 13 years, 283 days when he won gold as the cox in the men’s coxed pair in 1960 in Rome.

In an individual event, the youngest gold-medal winner is Japanese swimmer Kusuo Kitamura in the 1,500-metre freestyle event in 1932 at the age of 14 years, 309 days.

2) The youngest female Olympians

They say youth is wasted on the young, but it’s hard to believe it when you take into account the accomplishments of the Italian women’s gymnastics team at the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam.

Teen Vogue magazine notes the team included three athletes who stand out for their startling ages: Ines Vercesi, 12 years, 99 days old; Carla Marangoni, 12 years, 269 days old; and the famed Luigina Giavotti, who was (wait for it) just 11 years, 301 days old — making her the youngest female Olympian and youngest female medallist. Luigina and her team won silver in the all-around event.

Her record will never be broken because the rules for gymnasts in the modern Games say they must be at least 16 to compete.

In an individual event, the youngest female Olympic medallist is Denmark’s Inge Sorensen, who won bronze in the 200-metre breaststroke at the 1936 Berlin Games when she was just 12 years, 24 days old.

The youngest person, male or female, to win Olympic gold in the summer? Meet legendary American diver Marjorie Gestring, who finished on top of the heap at the 1936 Berlin Games, snagging gold in the three-metre springboard event at the age of 13 years, 268 days. Her surprise victory was considered a major upset at the time.

“Gestring continued to compete nationally after the 1936 Olympics, but further Olympic ambitions were thwarted when the Second World War led to the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympic Games,” notes an article on young Olympians in Teen Vogue.

Gestring tried to make a comeback for the 1948 Games, but failed to qualify for the American team.

1) The youngest and oldest Canucks

Let’s kick things off by talking about “Captain Canada,” the legendary equestrian show jumper Ian Millar, who is this nation’s oldest Olympian.

According to the Canadian Olympic team’s official website, Millar was 65 years, 212 days old at the start of the London Olympics in 2012, where he appeared in his 10th Games, a record for any athlete, male or female. With his famed horse, Big Ben, the then-61-year-old became Canada’s oldest medallist at the 2008 Games in Beijing, where his faultless run got his team into a gold-medal jump-off, narrowly losing gold to the United States. He had his eyes on Rio, but was sidelined after his horse, Dixson, underwent sinus surgeries.

Canada’s oldest female Olympian is archery competitor Marjory Saunders, who was 59 years, 182 days at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Its youngest female Olympian? Team Canada’s website says it is swimmer Barbara Hounsell, who was only 13 years, 102 days old at the start of the Tokyo Games in 1964.

In contrast, the youngest Canadian male Olympian, legendary diver Alex Despatie, was a mere 15 years, 114 days old at the beginning of the Sydney Games in 2000.

The youngest Canuck man to bring home gold? Meet George Genereux, who was 17 years, 148 days when he won the trap shooting event in Helsinki in 1952.

In 1928 in Amsterdam, Jane Bell, who was 18 years, 64 days old, became Canada’s youngest female gold medallist when she powered the 4×100-metre track team to top spot.

At the other end of the spectrum, the oldest Canadian man to grab gold was George Lyon, who was 46 years, 29 days old when he became the last Olympic champion in golf, taking top spot at St. Louis in 1904.

In Los Angeles in 1984, at the age of 40 years, 212 days, bespectacled pistol-shooter Linda Thom became the nation’s oldest female gold medallist, its first woman to win an Olympic shooting event and the first Canadian summer gold medallist since 1928.

In case you missed the point: you’re never too old or too young to dream. So put down that cane — or Pokemon Go — and start training, because the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games are only four years away.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca