99-year-old and 92-year-old go head-to-head in 60-metre sprint
Most people would be thrilled to make it to their 90s with their mind and body still intact, but two extraordinary nonagenarians have taken it a step further, battling it out in a nail-biting 60-metre track race.
Orville Rogers, 99, and Dixon Hemphill, 92, went head-to-head in the sprint race at the USATF Masters Indoor Track & Field Championships in New Mexico, USA. Hemphill maintained a slight lead for the first 55 metres before Rogers, a WWII veteran, narrowly overtook his younger competitor and won by five-hundredths of a second!
Compared to the under-10 second personal bests of Olympians running the men’s 100m, the elderly duo’s times of 18 and 18.05 seconds to complete 60 metres is certainly impressive. So, it’s no surprise that footage of the thrilling race, posted to Facebook, quickly went viral.
“I took off, and I was a little bit ahead so I thought, ‘This is going well,’” Hemphill told Runner’s World of his early lead. “I think had I leaned a little bit, I would have won.”
However, Hemphill wasn’t too disappointed at his loss. The pair also faced off in the 200m, 400m, 800m an 1600m, with the 92-year-old coming up trumps in these longer events. “I guess he has the speed and I have the distance,” Hemphill chuckled.
Video: USA Track & Field/Facebook. Image: USATF.
Related links:
Gorgeous great-grandma grooves into her 100th birthday
95-year-old man finally comes out as gay
Dutch woman in her 90s ticks “getting arrested” off bucket list