6 Time Olympian
There’s been a lot of talk about many athletes in this years Olympics being true veterans and competing through several Olympic games. For some sports (gymnastics being one) 28 is getting quite advanced in age to continue competing at a high level. Care in training, good genetics and a bit of luck are significant factors in maintaining the ability to continue at a high level in sport.
Jordan Jovtchev is a 6 time Olympian. Doing that in any sport is an astounding achievement. Doing it in gymnastics is unprecedented, and not likely to be repeated for quite some time. That’s 24+ years of elite level competition. Jordan has a very detailed and diligent warm up routine. He takes care to minimize the damaging aspects of training. He keeps up with base exercises to ensure a very balanced strength and fitness level to ensure he’s buffered well against the damage of elite level competition.
Other Olympians in the “older” category.
71 yr old equestrian Hiroshi Hoketsu
54 yr old equestrian Mark Skelton
52 yr old wind surfer Jessica Crisp
Swimmers, cyclists, the list goes on. The bottom line is that there are a lot of athletes not only continuing in their sports, but doing it at the highest level of sport for long periods of time. Now the ability to maintain this level of competition for a long time is an exceedingly rare thing. It is something to look toward and see what we can learn from these athletes, but not something to expect.
Women’s beach volleyball was again won by Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings. This is their third Olympic gold medal. This longevity and success in the sport is phenomenal. As we at The Cave know well, CrossFit supports older athletes, having divisions for masters at the annual CrossFit Games. We hope to see this trend continue, and encourage everyone to just keep doing sports. Train hard, regularly pick up and learn new sports. Have FUN!!!