G RANDFATHER and veteran yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston has delivered another resounding blow for the old guard of sport with his third place in the 3542-mile Route du Rhum race, from Saint-Malo to Guadeloupe.
Competing against the world's finest sailors in his appropriately named Grey Power, the 75-year-old was the oldest competitor in a fleet of nearly 80, yet finished more than 12 hours faster (and 11 places better) than when he last contested the event 32 years ago.
"I'm just not ready for the slippers, pipe and TV," he said before setting sail. Yesterday, he told HeraldSport: "It's all in the mind. If you have the determination and the will to win, you can compete as long as your body allows. That all comes down to how well you have kept your body, of course. Do you keep busy and fit naturally? Because if you do, it is so much easier to get up to a serious performance standard. It is harder as you get older and it takes more effort to reach the standard and so you have to work harder at it."
It's more than 45 years since he completed his record single-handed non-stop circumnavigation, sailing into Falmouth after 312 days.
His latest Odyssey took just over 20 days, and he he plans to contest the 2018 edition with a smaller boat. "Everyone is fixated by age, but I don't even bother with it," he said.
Yet finishing on the podium in an open sporting contest, especially one as physically demanding as single-handed sailing, is a remarkable feat. Especially after an absence of seven years. Knox-Johnston is founder and chairman of the Clipper Round the World Race which gives ordinary mortals the opportunity to challenge themselves in one of his company's 70-foot yachts.
The oldest crewman in the last edition was 74. Knox-Johnston said he could hardly exclude him, given that the American was younger than he was himself. The oldest woman was 74-year-old, self-confessed "dotty grandmother" Gil Sharpe, from Wimbledon. She had already ticked ascents of Machu Pichu and Kilimanjaro off her bucket list.
There seems a growing realisation that age is less of a barrier to human endeavour and a far less deferential attitude to advancing years. I personally believe this is not a rehearsal, and that we should challenge ourselves more. If you sit at home in your slippers, watching TV, you may live a long time. Or it may just seem like a long time.
This has been a vintage year for those prepared to push back age boundaries. We salute, once again, Jo Pavey, short-listed yesterday for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. Pavey took European 10,000 metres gold at 40 this summer, 10 months after the birth of her second child, the oldest female European champion ever. After numerous minor championship medals, Commonwealth bronze in Glasgow and world and Olympic finals, it was her first international gold.
We applaud Katherine Grainger, Scotland's gold-medal oarswoman and most successful female Olympic rower, back racing for a 2016 place, daring to compromise all she has achieved. She will be 41 if she makes Rio. Like many who achieve outstanding feats, she feels she must continue to challenge herself.
There are many examples: Sir Stanley Matthews was 41 when he played his last game for England, and 50 on his valedictory match for Stoke City in the English First Division. When he damaged a cartilage in an exhibition match, aged 70 , he wrote of "a promising career cut tragically short".
Scotland's Bud Payne won Commonwealth discus gold in 1970 and silver aged 40, four years later. She still competes, aged 80, and holds five world masters records.
Ireland's Harry Beasley won the Grand National aged 39 in 1891 and was challenged to a fight by the jockey of the runner-up, whose trainer warned his jockey to back off, telling him he would finish second again. Beasley was still riding winners aged 80.
Peter Heatly, Scotland's iconic diving gold medallist, told me he retired when he realised "fathers of some of my rivals were older than I was". There were echoes of that from Jack Holden, 43 when he won 1950 European marathon gold, still the oldest winner of any European athletics title. The runner-up, on learning his age, blurted: "You are older than my father!"
Boxers George Foreman and Bernard Hopkins won world heavyweight and light heavyweight titles at 48, and cheers when 59-year-old Tom Watson threatened to win the Open were deafening.
And let's not overlook Ellie Greenwood, who won the world 100 kilometre title last Friday in Doha. A late starter in the sport, Scotland's only world athletics champion is 35.
Sir Robin said he could not speak for other sports. "There is no question though, that experience does count, particularly in a sport like sailing."
He and his like have rekindled an inspirational flame.
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