Equestrian rider Hiroshi Hoketsu, who turns 67 next month, will become the oldest Japanese Olympian when he appears in the Beijing Games.

But Hoketsu, who took part in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, is a mere stripling compared with Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who collected his sixth medal at the 1920 Antwerp Games, aged 72 years and 280 days.

So much for the oldest, but what about the youngest … ?

The youngest individual event Olympics medallist was also a Scandinavian, 12-year-old Inge Sorensen of Denmark, who took bronze in the 200m breastroke at the 1936 Berlin Games. Marjorie Gestring of the United States won gold in springboard diving that year — she was just 13.

And here’s another Olympic oldie, field hockey medallist Feroze Khan. He died seven months after celebrating his 100th birthday on April 20, 2005. Khan played in the hockey team for the then British colony of India at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

 Picture by Zahid Hussein.