It’s been a good few weeks for achievements by people who are so old that—typically—each new breath would be considered something of a triumph . Fauja Singh finished the London Marathon in late April; he is 101. A week or so earlier, Peggy McAlpine reclaimed the record for the oldest person to take part in a tandem paraglide flight; she is 104.
McAlpine captured the record a few years back, lost it to a 101-year-old American, then snatched it back with a leap from a 2,400-foot peak in northern Cyprus’ Kyrenia mountain range. And she issued a warning to any other centenarians who might be eyeing her slot in the Guinness book: if need be, she’ll jump again to hold on to her title. (Fauja Singh, we’ll note, has announced his retirement from marathon racing. So the door is wide open for any 102-year-old distance runners.)
There’s a charming story in the Express on McAlpine, who had her first flight in a bi-plane, in 1920, when people talked about aeroplanes and pilots had no compunction about buzzing a young passenger’s house just to scare her father. She was fearless then; she was fearless at age 80, when cruel grandchildren introduced her to extreme sports by talking her into bungee jumping; and she fearless now.
For the record, she claimed that her second paraglide flight was more enjoyable than the first.
