Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast
Apologies if you woke up this morning and hoped for a day in which you didn’t feel lame. Because this isn’t going to help: Klaus Obermeyer just turned 100, and he has been celebrating the way a ski legend should, with a daily half-mile swim, long stints in the gym and, of course, skiing. Warned...
Old Brit wrestles shark, saves children
Oh, you can say it isn’t Jaws. You can point out that the poor animal was probably sickly, possibly dying. But it doesn’t diminish the fact that 62-year-old Welsh grandfather Paul Marshallsea, along with a couple of other old dudes, walked into the ocean off Queensland and harassed a shark until it swam off, apparently...
Marco Olmo is to the Alps what Caballo Blanco was to the Copper Canyon
Writing about the real and perceived risks of long-distance running for old people, we were reminded of the triumphs of Marco Olmo, the 60-year-old Italian excavator operator who won the grueling, 166-km (with 9,400 meters of climbing) Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc. Actually, he won it twice, in 2006 and 2007. He’s well known in Europe...
101-year-old Fauja Singh finishes London Marathon
Fauja Singh has (again) broken the record for the oldest person to finish a marathon. The BBC reports that the 101-year-old Londoner (and proponent of ginger curry) posted a time of 7 hours and 49 minutes. That’s about a half-hour faster than his time at the 2011 Toronto Marathon, where he set the previous record...
Century-old Frenchman (with the body of a 75-year-old) sets biking record
There are many, many things to say about this, and there is nothing that is necessary beyond the following: at the age of 100, Robert Marchand—citizen of France, former inhabitant of Venezuela and former Canadian lumberjack—has just ridden a bike 15.1 miles. In an hour. That sets a new record because it...
Put down the ginger curry and applaud Fauja Singh, 100-year-old marathoner
At age 100, British runner Fauja Singh completed Sunday’s Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 8:25:16, placing 3,850 out of 3,855. Which means first that he is a phenomenal athlete and second that five people had to slink home after the race and admit they were beat by someone who was born the...
Achieving Backcountry Hero Status Now Virtually Impossible
This is how extraordinarily tough Amos Richards is: the 64-year-old North Carolinian was hiking in Utah’s desert backcountry, around Little Blue John Canyon, when he fell about 10 feet, suffering multiple leg fractures and internal injuries. He was alone and unable to put weight on the injured...
Toughest old bird of the day: you decide
If you need to be reminded that even the most prosaic trip can have its risks, consider Dan Anders (61) from St. Petersburg, Florida. An avid outdoorsman, Anders was on a not-particularly-adventuresome trip through the West. Visiting the parks, driving aimlessly down back roads, collecting...
Unnamed 95-year-old is tougher than you are
Africanized honey bees attacked a 95-year-old man yesterday, stung him enough times to kill him–but didn’t. The Los Angeles Times reports that the bees, riled up by an exterminator, bit the man 400 times. A police spokesman said the man was actually bitten “thousands of...
