33-Year-Old Medalist in gymnastic

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http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3577911,00.html

German Gymnastics Team Gets Boost from 33-Year-Old Medalist

At her fifth Olympic Games in Beijing, 33-year-old gymnast Oksana Chusovitina finally claimed an individual medal. It's her story of determination and heartache that has won the hearts of viewers around the world.

Oksana Chusovitina is one of a kind. Not only is she the oldest woman in over half a century to win an Olympic medal in gymnastics, she's been competing for nearly two decades already -- that's longer than many of her teammates have been alive.

And she's competed in five Olympic Games under three flags. In 1992, just after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, she joined the unified ex-Soviet squad and in 1996, 2000 and 2004 she competed for her home country Uzbekistan, where she had already become something of a national hero.

Germany's gymnast Oksana Chusovitina performs her floor routine during the women's gymnastics individual all-around competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Chusovitina's silver will hang next to her team gold from 1992

But this year, after claiming German citizenship in 2006, she is a member of the German team. Germany has traditionally not been shown particular strength in gymnastics and Chusovitina's silver on Sunday in vault was Germany's first Olympic medal in gymnastics in 20 years -- a much needed boost to the team.



Son's illness shaped gymnast's path

Chusovitina began her Olympic career in 1992 with a team gold in Barcelona. Besides coming up dry after that in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens, the 16-year quest for an individual medal was a rough one for the Uzbek athlete.

In 2002, Chusovitina's son Alisher, then three years old, was diagnosed with leukemia. Since she already had close ties to the gymnastics team in Cologne, where she had competed in the German national league, she moved to Germany with her husband Bakhodir Kurpanov, a former successful wrestler, and their son.

In Cologne, Chusovitina was able to train with the German team and seek medical attention for Alisher. She competed like mad in the years that followed, using her prize money to cover medical bills.

Claiming German citizenship in 2006 allowed the gymnast and her family to stay in Germany for Alisher's follow-up examinations -- and it allowed her to strive for a fifth Games. Chusovitina hadn't abandoned her hopes for an individual.



Ready for London in 2012

And Sunday's silver shows that, in a sport dominated by teenage prodigies, she has only improved with age.

"I don't feel 33, I feel 18," said Chusovitina. "This medal is for my son. I can't say how happy I am."

And she's not thinking about retirement. Instead, she's got the 2012 London Games on her mind.

"By then I'll be 37; if I can I'll do a sixth Olympics," she said.

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Just found another article about not-so-young Olympian:
http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080819/OPINION/808190323/1027/OPINION01

Athletes are breaking Olympic age barriers

Monitor staff
August 19, 2008 - 7:07 am


'The water doesn't know how old you are," says American swimmer Dara Torres, who won a silver medal at age 41.

With eight gold medals American swimmer Michael Phelps broke a record Mark Spitz set 36 years ago. Phelps, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Olympics, now has 14, more than any other Olympian. His eight first-place finishes in a single Olympics could, like Spitz's record of seven golds, take a generation or more to beat. But as for the 14 golds, that record will likely fall in 2012 when Phelps adds to his hoard.

Phelps is just 23. If he competes until he is Torres's age, he has four, maybe five Olympics in him. Athletic longevity is admirable in an era where kids 7 or 8 years old are told that it's too late for them to become good soccer players and athletes in some sports are washed up while still in their teens. But it is no longer rare.

Swimmers don't suffer the pounding, wrenching and hard landings common to other sports, so it's not surprising that they tend to have longer careers. Theirs is also one of the only sports that offer an individual the chance to compete in so many events. But swimmers aren't the only Olympians who are getting long of tooth.

Shooting, archery and sailing, also events that don't beat up the body, often have competitors in their 50s and 60s. Shooter Libby Callahan, 56, was the oldest American Olympian at this year's games, but she's just a kid compared with the oldest competitor ever in that event: Oscar Swahn, who won a medal for Sweden in the 1920 Games at age 72.

Hiroshi Hoketsu is the oldest competitor in this year's Olympics. The Japanese equestrian who rode in the 1964 Olympics is making a return appearance after a lapse of 44 years. But the comeback medal of the 2008 Olympics should go to Oksana Chusovitina, the only gymnast to compete in five Games.

Health care concerns drive an increasing number of life decisions: where to work, where to live, whether to get married and when to retire. So it was with Chusovitina. When her son, then 3, was diagnosed with leukemia, Chusovitina knew that the hospitals and health care system in her native Uzbekistan were not equipped to save his life. So she called her old coach, and he offered her a spot on Germany's gymnastics team.

Some stories have a happy ending. Chusovitina's son got top-notch care and is now, at age 9, recovering nicely and a gymnast himself. And she, at 33, won a silver medal in the vault.

Callahan says she'll probably compete again in 2012. So does Hoketsu and Chusovitina.

The Olympics are designed to foster good will between nations through competition - though athletes often no longer live in or speak the language of the nation they represent - to entertain and to inspire. The message sent by Chusovitina, Torres and the rest of the aging athletes of the 2008 Olympics is don't give up, you're only as old as you feel and act. As Torres said, the water doesn't know how old you are. Neither does the gun, the bow, the boat, the track, the weights or the ball.