AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This week, more than 12,000 older athletes from all 50 states are in Des Moines, Iowa, competing in the National Senior Games. The growing biennial event features more than two dozen sports competitions for athletes who are 50 and older. Iowa Public Radio’s Natalie Krebs dropped by to check it out.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: One-twenty-five.
NATALIE KREBS, BYLINE: It’s like the opening ceremony of the Olympics on a swelteringly hot day at a park in downtown Des Moines, thousands of senior athletes organized by state parading in front of the amphitheater as part of the Senior Games Celebration of Athletes.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Alabama.
(CHEERING)
KREBS: Some wear matching outfits. Others wave their state’s flag. A few even proudly display the medals they’ve won from the first few days of the 12-day competition. It’s Bonnie Bickett’s first time playing in the Senior Games. Bickett is 72 and from nearby Cedar Falls, Iowa. She’s doing pickleball and tai chi.
BONNIE BICKETT: I actually got a silver medal for my tai chi, which was pretty exciting.
KREBS: Ninety-five-year-old Joyce Jones from Seattle is a veteran participant in the games. She has been to every national competition since it first started in 1987, except one.
JOYCE JONES: I missed New York ’cause I had to have this knee replaced.
KREBS: Jones says it’s thrilling this is the first year there’s a category exclusively for people 90 and older in pickleball, the event’s most popular sport.
JONES: And it’s going to get bigger. Every two years there seem to be a lot more of us older seniors. I hope I can play till I’m 100 (laughter).
KREBS: Attendance at the games is growing. That’s as the country’s population is aging in general. The 12,500 participants this year marks the second-highest number of athletes in the Games’ nearly 40 year history. Sue Hlavacek is the organization’s CEO.
SUE HLAVACEK: You know, everybody thinks when you turn 50, you’re old and can’t do anything, but it gives an outlet and opportunity for athletes to socially, mentally and physically participate.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHUFFLEBOARD PUCKS CLINKING)
KREBS: For TeAda Vigil, that outlet is shuffleboard. Vigil holds her cue and carefully sides her pucks across the floor on a skating-rink-turned-shuffleboard-court. She’s trying to land on numbered squares to score as many points as she can without being blocked by her two opponents. She’s come all the way from the Jicarilla Apache reservation in northern New Mexico to defend her gold medal. She likes games that involve strategy and accuracy.
TEADA VIGIL: Each board is different. Like, there’s how many boards here, and they’re all different because of the surface.
KREBS: Vigil, who is 65, says she also looks forward to seeing other Native American women from across the country. She wants to make an all-Native team.
VIGIL: A lot of camaraderie – we help each other out. And it doesn’t matter what age you are. We just – we’re here to play and have fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
KREBS: This day at the YMCA, swimmers in their 50s and 60s are lining up for contest in the 200-yard backstroke and the 100-yard IM. The individual medaling includes four different swimming strokes. Sixty-five-year-old David Guthrie, who’s broken world records as a master swimmer, is competing in six events.
DAVID GUTHRIE: So that’s the limit you can do. So I’m doing the three breaststrokes – 50, 100, 200. I’m doing the 100 IM and the 200 IM and the 100 butterfly.
KREBS: He says competing with older swimmers has been very inspirational.
GUTHRIE: I mean, there’s kind of a slogan that says, get slower, slower. And I don’t subscribe to that. It’s like, I don’t want to get slower. I want to improve.
KREBS: And that’s the goal for many of the participants at the National Senior Games. But for others, it’s just a time to have fun.
For NPR News, I’m Natalie Krebs in Des Moines. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.