Meet The Record Holders Who Prove That Age Is Genuinely Just A Number
Guinness World Records has published a new feature celebrating some of the most extraordinary older athletes on the planet, a collection of record holders that makes a compelling case that age really is just a number. Leading the group is Mathea Allansmith of Hawaii, born in 1930, who took up running in her 40s and at the age of 92 completed a 10-kilometer race in two hours and 29 minutes at the 2022 Honolulu Marathon, making her the oldest woman ever to officially finish a 10k. She chose the Honolulu course deliberately for a reason she valued: it does not close its gates at a set time, meaning every runner, no matter how long it takes, gets to cross the finish line. Also featured is Ida Herbert of Canada, who was still actively teaching weekly yoga classes in her Ontario community at age 95, having spent decades before that working at the Orillia YMCA starting in the 1940s, earning Guinness recognition as the world's oldest yoga teacher.
Rounding out the group is Neville Sandiford of New Zealand, who did not pick up a croquet mallet until age 79 and is now the world's oldest competitive croquet player at 101. Taken together, these three record holders span a remarkable range of sport and more than 50 years of athletic achievement begun after the age most people consider retirement age. Guinness noted the feature as part of a broader look at how their records are shaped not just by the young and fast but by people who simply never stopped moving and found that the body, given purpose and a reason to show up, tends to cooperate far longer than expected. The records they hold, in different disciplines on different continents, share the same simple origin: they kept going when most people would have stopped.
