High-level sports for 91 years

On the third floor of the Montreal Chest Institute (MCI), McGill University, Olga Kotelko stands before a treadmill in the middle of a crowded room full of people and came especially for her. These people are there for him to pass the fitness tests, give blood samples in the earlobe or simply to watch and take notes. Olga takes off his glasses. She wears white sneakers New Balance running tights and black. On his silver hair, a circle kept a plastic breathing tube.

Taivassalo Tanja, 40, a specialist in muscle physiology, adjusts the jacket of Olga, whose interior is connected to several electrodes measuring heart rate, a good indicator of the health of the heart. Taivassalo made the acquaintance of Olga in the World Sprint Championships 2009 in Lahti, Finland. This competition is the highlight of the season for senior runners. Taivassalo had come to see her father run a marathon. However, it has not failed to spot the Canadian Lycra beating record after record ... at 91!

The senior competitions are generally open from 35 years and host many of their sixties, seventies and eighties (and some nonagenarians as Olga and one or two old). Among the thousands of participants at Lahti, several hundred were over 75 years, but Olga was that held everyone's attention. Considered one of the greatest athletes in the world, Olga is the owner of 23 world records, including 17 in his age category (90 to 95 years).

"In the senior race, there are records of 'easy' and records 'difficult'"Said Ken Stone, head of Masterstrack.com, main source of information on the senior circuit. Records "easy" are those that simply pick like ripe fruit into categories where there are so few competitors that nothing is immortalized in presenting. Stone does not consider, however, records of Olga as easy, because its performance is truly remarkable. Championships last fall in Lahti, Olga launched his javelin six meters farther than the best competitor in its class. Senior Olympic Games in Sydney, Olga ran the 100 meters in 23.95 seconds, two seconds faster than some of the finalists in the category 80-84 years.

The World Masters Athletics, the body responsible for the athletic senior, uses grids "for records" developed by statisticians to harmonize and then compare the performance out of the age factor. These grids are presented as percentages for each discipline. Theoretically, a record corresponds to a score of 100%. However, several performances of Olga - in shot put, high jump and the 100 meters - more than 100%. However, due to the limited number of competitors, this evaluation system is still groping.

A Lahti, saw Olga run fast enough to have her hair brushed back slightly, Taivassalo was personally shocked (also practice run) and deeply intrigued professionally, she hopes to build a database of various physiological parameters of Athletes over 85 years. Scientifically, it is a field almost unexplored. The category of over 85 years - which is currently the fastest growing in the population - is the subject of more and more studies on longevity. But until now, scientists are focusing mainly on ways of life: food, air quality, social networks and more recently the genes. It is just beginning to recover data on long-term effects of physical activity, now that the children of the revolution of the 1970s fitness starting to get old.

Although the senior athletics championships offer a field of interesting research, Taivassalo is not exactly the kind of specialist that is expected to invest. His area of ​​expertise is research on mitochondria and is to observe what happens in the body when mitochondria - the energy source of the cell - malfunction. His subjects are usually young people who come to see it because they suffer from neuromuscular disorders that will not go that worse. (Muscle cells require much energy, they are particularly affected when mitochondria lacking.) Mitochondrial problems appear with age and affect endurance, strength and function of the body. There is evidence, revealing that, for young patients with mitochondrial diseases, the practice of an exercise is an effective way to reduce symptoms. If this is proven, the sport could be treated as an elixir of youth whose effects against aging are well above what we thought until now.

No need to be an athlete to see the relentless ravages of age. The decline began with the quarantine, and our muscles begin to decrease over fifty. Then we slowly wither away until about 75 years ago, when something horrible happens: the muscle fibers, which should theoretically respond to physical training, no longer respond. There is something that hangs.

This is Olga complicates things, to the delight of scientists. Olga seems to age more slowly than normal. "Given the impressive muscle size keeps it, we say it must have a form of resistance"Said Russ Hepple, a physiologist at the University of Calgary and a specialist in aging muscle. By studying this resistance, the researchers hope to slow down more effectively the mechanisms of aging.

"I have the same energy as 50 years"

Hepple, who at 44, kept his physical runner, Taivassalo met at a conference on the physiology and sports. Taivassalo received his doctorate by studying people with mitochondrial diseases, and Hepple was more an expert in rats. This does not prevent them from marrying. In the room at McGill University, Hepple stands next to the treadmill, encouraging Olga as necessary to raise his heart beyond 135 beats per minute. Finally, the VO2 max [maximum oxygen consumption by the subject] Olga - closely linked to cardiovascular endurance - $ 15.5, what would be expected from a trained athlete of 91 ... if indeed the category exists!