12/9/2006

40-yr-old has best body!
The Peninsula On-line, 12/9/2006 3:29:52 ::: AGNS
DOHA—Hong Kong’s Chan Yun To, the reigning Asian 75kg bodybuilding champion, easily outclassed his competitors to win the gold medal [in the 15th Asian Games]….
Chan finished with a score of 10 in this evening’s final to win the top prize, ahead of Japan’s Yoshihiro Yano [age 42], who earned silver …
…at the age of 40, Chan showed his body is still in top form with his muscle definition and body symmetry far surpassing his opponents.…more…

At first this sounds odd—a 40 year old and a 42 year old taking the gold and silver in bodybuilding, respectively.
But actually, a bodybuilder’s biggest challenge is keeping the motivation going. The life of self-discipline to realize goals but that can be tough. On the other hand, these bodybuilders have results they can see late into life, unlike many sports where being 23 years old means retirement. I once met the four-gold-medal Olympics sprinter, Jesse Owens, at a Chicago promotion for PUMA shoes—He loved to repeat his sage advice about getting too wrapped up in sports: “A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.”