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.

Every marathon runner dreads ‘hitting the wall’. It’s that point, usually somehere around the kilometre 30 mark, when you suddenly run out of energy.

In China, you can do it twice on the same run — the Great Wall Marathon.

Built centuries ago to keep out barbarian hordes, the Great Wall of China can’t hold back the craziest long-distance runn ers.

The official Web site  http://www.great-wall-marathon.com/ tru mpets the May marathon as “a tough, beautiful and definitely extraordinary experience”. The 3,700 steps of the Great Wall, it enthuses, “will put your physique to the test and the breathtaking surroundings of Tianjin Province will compete with your tired muscles for attention”.

In case you are not the full marathon type, here’s the good news: you can run 5 km, 10 km or the 21-km half, and then get your breath back watching the sado-masochists trudge up the wall for a second time on their way to 42 km. 

I was offered a place in the Great Wall Marathon last year, just two days before the event. “What am I doing?” I asked myself as I climbed into the minibus in Beijing at 3 a.m. “This is utter madness.” Then I got the good news: my place was in the 10 km race. When I saw the towering heights of the wall on our arrival, I began to wonder if I could manage even that.  

Gruelling is the best word for it. The steps just go on and on, seemingly endless flights of tiny ones and then stages of thigh-high ones, some of them with a sheer drop into the tree-covered slopes of the mountain. Old hands say you should expect to add around 50 percent to your normal time for the distance you are running, which is why I was quite proud of my 78.5 minutes for 10 km.

But the best thing about the run was the stunning scenery — and the clear air. It’s about four hours’ drive from pollution-plagued Beijing, host of this year’s Olympic Games, where the world’s best marathon runners will be slogging around the streets this August. Maybe the Games organisers should move the marathon out to the Wall … it might be a step in the right direction. 

Enjoy the video: 

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