Vintage athletes put a smile into sport (News Feature)

By Sid Astbury Oct 14, 2009, 6:42 GMT

   Sydney - Nova Batman, who won a hockey gold for Australia at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and was a 400-metre runner at the Sydney Games four years later, is living proof that age wearies sports stars but does not always condemn them to sitting in front of the television watching the exploits of others.

   At the age of 37 she is in the younger cohort of the 28,000 competitors at the World Masters Games in Sydney and is competing in yet another discipline.

   'You get out, have a go - I guess that's just the spirit of these Games,' Batman said of her touch-rugby efforts in a team called the Bob Cats. 'There are so many people you see well and truly in the 60s. Hopefully, I'm like that.'

   Like most of those in Australia's biggest city for the seventh edition of the nine-day competition, Batman is keener on having fun than scoring a gold medal.

   'When you're older, you get more injuries,' she said. 'I probably should have had an ice bath last night, but I opted just to go straight to bed.'

   It's the same with local lad John Rigby, 82, who was disqualified in the steeplechase for sitting on a hurdle.

   Rigby trains, but not too seriously.

   'I just like doing it,' he said of a games programme that includes the cross-country and the half-marathon.

   Very few get to an Olympics and then compete in more than one discipline. But at these games there are some competitors in action every day, and winning a neckful of medals as the week progresses.

   A typical multi-discipline competitor is Australia's O Santa Claus, 80, who by just the third day of competition had swum in the 800-metre breaststroke and jogged in the 10-kilometre run.

   But there are the specialists, like 81-year-old weightlifter Kurt Rosenberger from Germany, who set a world record on the way to winning gold in his age category.

   There are competitors from 95 countries and the average age is 50. The oldest is a 101-year-old Australian lawn bowler and the youngest a 24-year-old Canadian swimmer.

   Sometimes, it's a walkover for the oldest of the cohort. Olga Kotelko, 90, won both the shot put and the 100 metres. Another non-specialist, she's entered in nine disciplines and is likely to go home to Canada with a swag of gold medals - not all of them after a tough battle with mates.

   Kotelko is often the only one on the starting blocks in her age group and so wins hands down.

   'It's all about meeting new friends and catching up with old ones - and I like the competition,' she said. 'I still feel fit, healthy and strong. There's no way I'm retiring any time soon.'

   For some competitors, it's over before the start - simply because of the good times they are having in Sydney. Bill Chapman, 85, was expecting to go up against Rosenberger in the weightlifting but missed the weigh-in because he was busy fraternizing with some Greeks.

   Some of the competitors are doing in the twilight of life what they dreamed of doing when they were young.

   Rob Barclay, a 71-year-old pole-vaulter, had hoped to be in Australia's team for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. It didn't happen and it had been 25 years since his heyday when he won gold in Sydney this week.

   Barclay is a bit of a philosopher when it comes ageing and how to deal with mortality. He ignored the pain of injuries to get in shape for Sydney and possibly his last chance at athletic glory.

   'We don't want to die a lingering death on hospital drips,' he said, seemingly speaking on behalf of many competitors. 'We want to go out with a bang. In full cry one moment, stone-dead in the armchair the next.'