On the verge of turning 50, Madame Butterfly does it again! But, should we care?

Susie O’Neill is back at it again!

Over the weekend, 23 years after winning gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, “Madame Butterfly” found herself crouching again on top of a starting block, waiting for the gun to go. On the verge of turning 50, she was simply looking to qualify for next month’s World Masters Games. The event was 50 metres butterfly &, in her mind, the first race since retirement was just going to be “a bit of fun”.

Precisely 28.95 seconds later she touched the wall & had the qualifying time she wanted. But she also had something else. She’d swum faster than the world record time for females in the 50-54 age category. Although still 49, the age eligibility rules mean the record was going to count, as she’ll be 50 when the games begin.

So, Susie O’Neill - once again - is a world record holder!

But, should we care?

Pardon the click bait, but yes, I think we should. Why? Well, not just because its an impressive feat of athleticism, from a widely respected & greatly loved athlete. And not because it’s Susie O’Neill, because anyone who follows the sport & knows anything about her would hardly be surprised. Impressed, yes. Surprised, no. Not really.

I think we should pay attention because of what it signals to us about the human potential to utilise our physical capacities across almost our entire life span. Let me make the point by sharing a quick personal story...

All hail, Katsura Suzuki!

As most people who know me understand, running is my thing. However, I’m currently recovering from a stress fracture & to reduce the load on my leg, I’ve been swimming quite a bit over the past few months. Now, I’m no ‘super-fish’, but I move through the water reasonably well & as my weekly volumes have increased, I’ve definitely got faster, stronger & technically better.

Yesterday, after doing a longer than normal run over the weekend, I headed to the pool for a recovery swim. I opted to do 1,500m freestyle in one steady continuous effort. Whilst I wasn’t pushing myself very hard, I wasn’t dawdling either & ended up completing the distance in 29min 45secs. That’s about right for me. Not especially fast, not especially slow. Just the sort of dip I wanted.

A few hours later, after reading more about Susie O’Neill’s effort, I got a little curious. I searched up the 1,500m freestyle world record times for Masters athletes aged 50+, intrigued to see how my modest effort would compare. To my great amusement, the world record in my age category is 17min 22secs, more than 12 minutes faster than my swim!

But wait, there’s more!

It turns out my time was only marginally faster than the current world record in the 90-94 age category! That honour is held by Japanese swimmer, Katsura Suzuki - a man 40 years my senior - who stopped the clock at 30mins 31secs in 2021!!

So, was this a crushing disappointment to me & devastating to my ego? Nope, not one bit.

Indeed, neither the 55-59 or 90-94 year record times were especially surprising. It simply reminded me of a fascinating research article I read in the second year of my exercise & sports science degree, one co-authored by the head of that program at the time, Prof. Ben Dascombe (pictured).

The data don’t lie!

What Ben & his collaborator, Peter Raeburn, did was plot & analyse world record times for swimming & running using increasing age brackets of 5-year increments (e.g., 25, 30, 35…through to 95 years of age). As this data is freely available, it was not difficult to collect.

As you would expect, they found that physiological markers like active muscle mass, muscle fibre size & maximal oxygen consumption all decreased with increases in age. As a result, athletes get slower over time. Whilst there is nothing especially surprising about that as a general finding, they were able to draw some conclusions about why that happens.

However, what caught my eye was the rate at which performances declined. For both swimming & running, world records times for athletes in their mid-50s were not dramatically slower than those in their mid-20s. Also, whilst speed continued to decline over the next two decades (55-75 years), the sharpest declines were not observed until around 75 years of age.

According to their data (shown in the line graph above), 50 years of ageing slowed performance by a total of ~7 minutes. Beyond that, times fall off a metaphorical cliff & increase by an average of 1 minute a year (i.e., 5-minutes for each 5-year increment).

Note: You might notice (in the line graph above) that the world record time at age 90 (~42mins) is much slower than Katsura Suzuki’s time mentioned earlier (30mins 31 secs). This is because the data for the study was collected in 2008 & Suzuki set his record 13 years later, in 2021. Just goes to show that records are made to be broken, even in the 10th decade of life!

Use it & keep it!

The implication of an analysis like this is potentially significant. It can lead us to wonder about just how much age & ageing impact our physical abilities. It can challenge the assumptions we hold about ourselves, including any negative age stereotypes that might be influencing how we make decisions about the things we try to do & don’t try to do based on a number…our age. In a recent blog, I referred to this as self-directed ageism.

As I hope is clear, swimming & running aren’t really the focus here. Whilst both offer many benefits to those who regularly swim & run, the Raeburn & Dascombe data set indicates that if we stay physically active, we give ourselves a good chance of retaining a decent slice of our physical abilities, for virtually all of our lives.

As a footnote, I should say that this is NOT news to evolutionary biologists & anthropologists, who have long observed the presence of incredibly strong, incredibly fit older adults in traditional, non-industrialised communities. Active grandparents that make important contributions to community life &, in so doing, use it & keep it.

O’Neill, Suzuki & Spence…which of these is not like the others?

Rather than let Susie O’Neill’s news story fade into the background, I was keen to call it out it for what it highlights. For me, it’s inspiring & invigorating. Whilst I know my physical health & satisfaction with life has skyrocketed since reconnecting with running 8 years ago, these examples of Masters athleticism spur me on to continue with more.

Whilst G. B. Spence may not show up in any world record lists anytime soon, I’ll be happy to keep on tapping into my physical self & using my body in the way it seems to have been designed. Along the way, I’m confident there’ll be plenty of enjoyment to be had & that’ll be more than enough of a return on the effort.

As a book I once read wisely suggested (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)… Get Moving Keep Moving!

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