Not Old for the Olympics Part I

The 2008 US Olympic swimming trials were held June 29 to July 6 in Omaha, Nebraska, photo at left. New world records were set, including by a swimmer that the news likes to call old. Dara Torres is 41, not old for an athlete.

Swimming is the Olympic event that I trained for over many years. I have seen an assortment of training beliefs and procedures come and go, and hope to post on them as the Olympics begin August 8 in Beijing China. It may seem like a new idea that experience and years of training make you a better athlete, but it is not new to maintain skills, even improve as years pass.

Hiroshi Hoketsu, age 67, will compete in two equestrian events. He was born in Tokyo Japan in 1941.

Dominique D'esme Gerbaud, born 1945 qualified for the French equestrian team.

Rajmond Debevec born in Slovenia Yugoslavia in 1963 is now going to his seventh Olympic Games at age 45. He is an Olympic and world record holder in 50m rifle shooting events.

Laurie Lever, born 1947, will compete in individual and team horse jumping at 60 years old.

John Dane III, born 1950 in New Orleans, LA, will compete for the US at age 58, and Peter Douglass, born 1955 will compete for Barbados in sailing.

Juan Carlos Dasque, born 1952, will compete for Argentina in trap shooting.

Mark Todd, born 1956, has made the New Zealand Equestrian team at age 52.

Juha Hirvi of Finland, born 1960 will go to his third Olympics at 48, competing in Men's 50m Rifle Prone and Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions.

Canadian Donna Saworski, born 1960, made the fencing team.

Another Canadian, Leslie Thompson-Willie, born 1959, will row crew in the woman's eight, at nearly 49 years old.

Galina Belyayeva of Kazakhstan, born 1951, is scheduled to compete in shooting at age 57. Elizabeth Callahan of the US will compete in pistol shooting at age 58.

Jeff Hartwick, born 1967 qualified for pole vault. Romy Tarangul of Germany, also born in 1967, will compete in Judo at age of almost 41.

Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, pictured at right, is a French cyclist born 1958, who won three Tour de France races, the Olympic Gold medal in the Atlanta 1996 games, a bronze at the Sydney 2000 Olympics at age 41, made the 2004 Athens Olympics at age 46, and will compete in Beijing in the Women's Individual Time Trial and Women's Road Race at nearly 50 years old (birthday is Oct 31).

Sheila Taormina, born 1969, will go to her fourth Olympics this August in Beijing. She competed in 1996 as a swimmer, the triathlon in 2000 and 2004, and will compete in the Modern Pentathlon (five events) in Beijing, making her the first U.S. athlete to compete in three sports in the Olympics.


Al Oerter, picture at left, born 1936, won four consecutive Olympic gold medals in the discus in 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, setting Olympic records each time. At age 40 in 1976, he threw his personal best. At age 44, he qualified for the U.S. Olympics trials in 1980. That was the year of the US boycott of the summer games.

The legendary Oerter passed away last year. Thank you Mr. Oerter for your inspiration.


Tomorrow, Not Old for the Olympics Part II - more on aging, athletics, performance enhancing drugs.

Labels: aging, Olympics, swimming, Tour De France

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Tour De France 2008 and Increasing Aerobic Capacity

The Tour de France is a 23-day bicycle race. This year it runs from July 5 to 27, 2008. It is a stage race, broken into individual races, from one town to another. The number of stages has varied over years since the tour began in 1903. Course distance runs approximately 3,000 km (1,864 mi) through most of France and often through one or more adjoining countries.

Some of the essence of "le Tour" was incorporated in the synthpop song "Tour de France," a 1983 hit single by the German group Kraftwerk. They put the motto of France in krautrock (krautrock is considered a fun and positive term by enthusiasts): Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for liberty, equality, good company - which is the point of much of the race.

The Tour de France is a difficult event. Even with light bicycles designed for each stage, it is still grueling. Athletes must train for exceptional aerobic ability.

Cardiovascular endurance, also called aerobic capacity, determines how long you can continue activity at your chosen pace. When you exercise, your body needs more oxygen, so your cells extract more of the oxygen your blood provides. Aerobically fit people can extract more oxygen when exercising, and so, can do more exercise. Average exercise needs about 10 times more oxygen supplied to your active tissues, than at rest. Heavy exercise can increase need to around twenty times. If you do not have high enough capacity from training, you will be too out of breath to continue. World-class athletes have been recorded to reach over 30 times their resting rate.

With regular endurance activities, such as biking, running, swimming, your body makes many changes that improve function. You increase blood volume, the number of oxygen-carrying blood cells, expand the network of blood vessels, reduce incidence of vessels clogged with fatty deposits, increase number of cellular organelles and enzymes your body uses to process oxygen into energy, and other physical improvements, to be covered in future posts.

Breathing in more oxygen won't increase your ability to extract more oxygen. For that you need training. When your body senses it needs more oxygen than it is getting - during hard aerobic exercise or exposure to altitude - the kidneys secretes a natural human hormone called erythropoietin (EPO). EPO stimulates the bone marrow to make more red blood cells. Everyone can do this on their own through regular aerobic training. When some people want more EPO, they may try blood transfusions, called Transfusion Doping, an illegal procedure to increase maximum oxygen carrying ability. They may also inject various kinds of synthetic human erythropoietin. Whether having the money and access to these substances is fair play is topic of many debates in sports ethics. More important is that they are not healthy. Blood can thicken and cell count increases to a dangerous level leading to cardiac problems. Deaths have occurred in young athletes from blood doping practices. There have been experiments with artificial oxygen carriers based on recombinant, bovine (cow), and human hemoglobin or perfluorocarbons. These substances have potentially lethal side effects including renal toxicity, increased blood pressure, and immune depression. Champions don't need them. You don't need them.

Posts to come will cover more on performance enhancement, drugs, supplements, Le Tour and other bike races, The Olympics and other events. Posts on supplements and performance enhancing drugs:

• Human Growth Hormone
• Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training
• Get Muscles for Christmas

Books that cover aerobic training and performance enhancement are Health & Fitness THIRD edition (good for general populations) and Healthy Martial Arts (more for athletes of body and mind).

Labels: aerobic, altitude, biking, drugs, endurance, performance enhancing modality, Tour De France

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