Senior athletes set for Utah event

A Meath man who is approaching his 97th birthday hopes to bring home gold from the World Senior Games in Utah next week.

Mr Gerry Smyth, of the Summerhill Active Retirement Group, was the oldest competitor in the European Senior Games in Belgium in April. He took the organisers by surprise as the event did not have an over-90 category. Nevertheless, he took home gold in the 1,500 metre walking event.

"I'm going for gold again," he said modestly yesterday as he prepared for the trip to the States. "But it's the World Games so I would be happy with a silver."

He is competing in the over-95 category in the 5 km walk this time and is once again a regular fixture in Trim, power-walking around Newtown. The Summerhill team of nine, aged from 50 upwards, leave for the US on Sunday, with most events on next Thursday. Most of the Summerhill group are in their seventies.

The team's early arrival in St George, Utah will help them acclimatise to the heat, according to Ms Mary Nally, of the Summerhill Active Retirement Group. Temperatures reach 26 degrees Celsius at this time of year. Mr Smyth's other team mates include former GAA president, Dr Mick Loftus (74) and his wife Edie. Dr Loftus is competing in the 5 km run while Mrs Loftus is in the golf event.

Dr Loftus runs three miles about five times a week, usually after a day in the surgery. "I find it tremendous for myself. I'm not on any special diet and I'm down from 15 stone when I was GAA president, to 12 and a half stone now."

His current time is about 30 minutes for 5 km. Last year's winner in the 70-75 age category came in at 25 minutes. "But we'll do our best," he said. "I'm really looking forward to it."

The Utah trip came about when Ms Nally read about the event on the Internet. "I just said to Gerry, 'how about taking on the world? Would you like that?' and he said 'would I what'!"

Last year, the World Senior Games attracted more than 6,500 competitors from 30 countries. The Games include basketball, mountain biking, swimming, volleyball and race walking.