A Temuka sportsman has proved age is no barrier after winning five gold medals in six hours.
73—year—old Lindsay Walker received the gold medals along with one bronze in this years’ New Zealand Masters Games, which took place in Dunedin.
Mr Walker competed in the male 70 to 74-year-old athletic section, with some of his results placing him high on world rankings.
In the men’s’ finals, each event had between five to eight competitors, and he said the competition was ‘‘tough’’.
‘‘They’ve still got it.’’
Mr Walker had competed in athletics at Southland Boys’ High School, but he stopped when he was 25 years old.
After a 45-year hiatus he had laced up his tread free shoes once more.
He had learnt discus and shot put when he was younger, but on his return he decided to learn learn three new disciplines: the hammer throw, weight throw and javelin.
He said while the javelin looked fairly straight forward, it was the hardest to learn.
Among other things, ‘‘you needed to get the right position and the right height’’.
Mr Walker won a medal in every category he had entered: gold in hammer throw, discus, shot put, weight throw and the weight pentathlon, and a bronze medal in the javelin.
He said competing intensely over two days was ‘‘really tough’’ not only for nutrition and hydration, but psychologically tough, too.
Given three attempts at each discipline, if it failed the first two times he could not let his mind sabotage his final attempt.
He had heard an athlete was ‘‘reasonably good’’ after 10,000 throws, but for some of the throwing events he had only thrown them 2000 times.
Most of those throws had taken place at Gunnion Square in Temuka with his coach, and saw a lot of people driving and walking past.
He said it was lonely being the only South Canterbury competitor in his age group.
‘‘Come and join me. But just don’t stand in front of me.’’
His biggest piece of advice to people in their 40s and 50s was to keep moving.
‘‘Movement is a big thing. You need to be mobile, and keep your strength.’’
He said he was at an age where he could not gain more muscle, but keeping what he had and honing his technique made his attempts better.
He was lucky to have a good coach in Ian Baird (who had coached Olympians) and a good nutritionist in his wife Dalaine.
He said for able-bodied adults, ‘‘there is no reason anyone can’t get medals’’.
‘‘If I can do it they can do it.’’
He was now training for the championships in Inglewood.
