Verity Ockenden writes about why we should expect more ‘veteran’ athletes to challenge themselves at the highest level in the future and why this can only be good for the sport.
The topic of aging has been playing on my mind more than I’d like to admit lately. I turned 34 in August, and for the first time in my life, I was uncomfortable with a birthday, and then even more uncomfortable with myself for feeling uncomfortable about it.
I’m sure I only felt that way because age is perceived in the industry I work in, where athletes are traditionally thought to have seen their best days before the age of 30. I knew that based on my own data, four full years after my “sell by” date, my body was able to produce better splits in training than I had ever dreamed possible. And yet, I couldn’t help but feel that along with all the other hurdles associated with being a professional athlete, I might also be swimming against a tide of public opinion heavily biased against me in the years to come.
I had seen articles written in the run-up to the World Championships celebrating the longevity of Shelley-Anne Fraser-Pryce and Emily Infeld, who will both be competing in Tokyo, but it still shocked me to hear them called veterans at 38 and 35 years old respectively. Technically this is correct terminology according to the rulebook, but I wonder if it’s time for the rulebook to be updated (and this isn’t just a bad case of Dorian Gray syndrome).
While there are of course differences in the durability and expected longevity of different types of physical exposure, sprinters are relatively not expected to maintain their speed for as many years as distance athletes can maintain their endurance; six, and only 0.19 away from winning the World Cup. As he walked off the track and into the final performance of his illustrious career, it was clear that he was walking out of personal choice, not physical limitations.
Emily came into this world championship by winning the US 10,000m with a sharp stroke that clearly showed a lack of fast-twitch fiber decline, and while she admits she has changed her training approach to meet the evolving demands of her body over the years to achieve the same level of performance, she finds she could be just as fast as she was ten years ago.
In distance events in particular, there are many shining examples of women over 35 learning how to get the best out of themselves on both the track and the roads with experience behind them, like Emily.
Great Britain’s Joe Pavey is a classic example, securing the most prestigious victory of his career at the age of almost 41 with European 10,000m gold. Repeating this pattern, I was delighted to see Ireland’s Fionnula McCormack finish ninth in the World Championships marathon;
You may wonder why I have only talked about women so far, and this is an omission that is unknown to me. As I was writing this, I realized that I haven’t heard much talk about “veteran” male athletes competing in Tokyo, and I began to wonder if there are any, or if it isn’t being reported in the same way, and if so, why?
Was it less of a big deal for men to continue competing into their forties, or were fewer male athletes actually able to achieve this kind of longevity? Hoping there was no gender age bias, I did a little digging and found that there had actually been some notable performances by the likes of Portugal’s João Vieira, who managed to extend his athletic career to the age of 49 by finishing 20th in the 35km race.
It’s not the best global finish of his career, but it’s not the worst, and it’s certainly an incredible landmark on the map of what’s physically possible. Then there was Renaud Lavillenie, again not at his best but still very competitive on the world stage, finishing eighth in the pole vault.
France’s Nicolas-Marie Daroux made history by becoming the oldest athlete ever to reach the men’s cross country final, finishing seventh at the age of almost 37, in a year in which he also set a personal best of 8:10 at the Shanghai Diamond League.
None of these events are easy on the body, which makes the achievement even more remarkable, but they are achievements that I think we’ll see more and more normalized as a side effect of all the data-driven sports science we have these days.
Yes, the main focus of most research on high performance in sports is to find out how to achieve the fastest, highest or farthest runs, jumps or throws, but it turns out that many of its key elements, such as highly individualized nutrition plans, training loads and recovery strategies, are also factors that reduce the likelihood of injury and increase the likelihood of developing piles.
Medical advances and shoe technology are on our side here too, allowing us to both treat and protect against injuries that could have been career-ending in the past, but are now both treatable and avoidable.
For me, developing the sport like this only makes it more interesting. I’ve spoken to many track and field fans recently about how much they’re enjoying the unpredictability of Tokyo results, and logic leads me to believe that the depth of high-performing individuals emerging in this well-served, well-informed generation of athletes, combined with the greater breadth of generations, can only point to more unpredictability at the same level. in the future. I think that will be a major part of keeping the sport alive and building a wider fan base.
