Liberal Arts Blog —Olympics III — The Oldest (A 69 Year Old Equestrian From Australia) and The Youngest (An 11 Year Old Chinese Skateboarder)
Liberal Arts Blog — Saturday is Sports, Dance, Fitness, and All Things Physical Day
Today’s Topic: Olympics III — The Oldest (a 69 year old equestrian from Australia) and the Youngest (an 11 year old Chinese skateboarder)
Last time, surfing at the deadly Teahupo’o beach in Tahiti. In early July an introductory post on the transformation of Paris into an Olympic stadium, the logistics of the opening ceremony, and a little historical perspective in the form of the story of Jesse Owens and Luz Long at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
So many events, so many athletes, so many stories. Which has gripped you the most? The triumph of Simone Biles? of Katie Ledecky? of Novak Djokovic? The story of the IOC Refugee Olympic teams? Or that of transgender boxer Imane Khelif? Please share.
Today, somewhat randomly, a focus on the amazing 58 year spread between the youngest and the oldest Olympian. Mary Janna could be Hao Hao’s grandmother!
Plus a footnote on the question: is Olympic training a form of child abuse? should child labor laws apply? does Norway get it right with an age limit of 13?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, ellucidate.
ZHENG HAO HAO is 11 years, 11 months — born in 2012
1. China’s youngest-ever athlete to compete in an Olympics game.”
2. “I know over 10 of the world’s top skateboarders. It’s like we are playing a fun game — everyone has to show athlete the best they’ve got.” (Zheng)
3. “Skateboarding was first included in the Olympics at Tokyo 2020, and Zheng will be joined by several other young competitors including 12-year-old Thai athlete Vareeraya Sukasem and Team GB’s Sky Brown who, at 16, is already an Olympic medalist, having won bronze in park skateboarding in Tokyo.”
MARY JANNA — 69 years old, her 7th Olympics, four months shy of her 70th birthday! But does she really count?
1. Well, not exactly. She will be an “AP” athlete — on standby in case of injury.”
2. “The oldest athlete set to definitely compete will also be an equestrian — Juan Antonio Jimenez Cobo of Spain, who is 65. Jimenez will be taking part in his third Olympic Games, having debuted in Sydney in 2000. He took home the silver medal in team dressage in Athens in 2004 but has not been to an Olympics since then.”
3. Photo below is of Juan Antonio Jimenez Cobo.
OSCAR SWAHN (1847–1927), Swedish shooter, won a Silver Medal at age 72 in 1920 — oldest to medal, oldest to compete.
1. Competed in three Olympics.
2. Won six medals.
3. Three gold.
NB: The 1920 medal was in the double shot running deer contest (a team event).
A LITTLE CLOSER TO HOME — THE OLDEST OLYMPIAN TO WIN A TABLE TENNIS MATCH NI XIA LIAN OF LUXEMBOURG, 61 years, beats Sibel Altinkaya, a Turkish player, age 31!!!!
1. Born in Shanghai, she won two gold medals for China in the 1983 World Championships in Berlin. Her highest ranking in the world was #6 in 1985. This year she competed for Luxembourg — carrying the flag for their team in the opening ceremony.
2.”I’m always younger today than I will be tomorrow.”
3. “My style is old fashioned, but my technique is advanced, you can can always change what you do, always improve. I hope we showed the world that any age can play and that any kind of people can play.”
NB: “I was worried if I was good enough, but if you never play, you’ll never know.”
FOOTNOTE — SHOULD THERE BE A MINIMUM AGE LIMIT? IS PARTICIPATION BELOW THE AGE OF 13 CHILD ABUSE? WHAT ABOUT THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938? DOES NORWAY POINT THE WAY?
1. The child labor analogy: “Almost a century ago, this country radically rethought the relationship of children and labor, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 imposed minimum age requirements for work and limited the numbers that some children could be employed. We should do the same with sports, starting with instituting a universal minimum age for competing in the Olympic Games and other international championships.” Is this very right? or very wrong? Is the analogy a good one? or a bad one?
2. “Norway’s national sports system prohibits child athletes from participating in national, European, or World championship before age 13, and it has not resulted in diminished results: Norway won 37 medals during the 2022 Winter Olympics, compared with America’s 25. Norway’s commitment is codified in the Children’s Rights in Sport, a policy that protects a child’s right “to choose which sport or how many sports they wish to participate in.”
3. AI: “According to the International OIympic Committe (IOC) there is no specific age limit for participating in the Olympic Games. However, each sport’s international federation can set minimum requirement. For example, some sports with minimum requirements include: diving, 14, gymnastics, 16 for artistic gymnasts, wresting, 18.” For boxing the age is 17. The youngest boxer to participate in the Olympics was a Dutch Jewish boy from Amsterdam, Ben Bril, in 1928 on his 16th birthday. Although deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War Two, he survived though many of his extended family did not.
https://www.tiktok.com/@brutamerica
Mary Hanna Interview | Olympics | Off The Podium Podcast Episode 396
Juan Antonio Jiménez — Wikipedia
‘Auntie’ Ni, 61, beams as she bows out to Olympic table tennis champion
Opinion | Why in the World Are We Sending 11-Year-Olds to the Olympics?
Kids at the Olympics: ‘It’s Honestly Kind of Insane.’
Olympic boxers reignite debate over inclusion in women’s sports
Ben Bril: the youngest-ever Olympic boxer
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game
For the last four years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to sports, dance, fitness. Or the coolest thing you learned about Sports, Dance, of Fitness in your life — whether on the field, on the dance floor or in the gym, whether from a coach, a parent, a friend, or just your own experimentation.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or even change their life. It’s perhaps a chance to put into words something you have never articulated before. And to cement in your own memory something cool you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
