Still going strong despite the stigma of growing old, athletes ages 50 and older will compete Friday in Olympic-style events.
At the 16th Annual UF Health Gainesville Senior Games, nearly 300 contestants will face off for gold, silver and bronze medals in nine athletic events such as cycling, track and swimming.
Joleen Cacciatore, the executive director of the Gainesville Sports Commission, said hosting the event will help promote friendly competition and active lifestyles.
“It is important to have the games for our local participants to promote active lifestyles and give them a chance to compete against each other and do something that they don’t often have the opportunity to do,” she said.
The games, which will run from Friday to Oct. 1, will take place at several locations throughout Gainesville, including the gymnasium at Santa Fe College, Cacciatore said. The top five qualifiers in each age group will qualify for the Senior Games state championship in Clearwater, Florida.
In the past, there have been competitors in their 90s, but the oldest competitors who usually participate are in their mid-80s, she said. Some participants travel from as far as South Florida and Jacksonville.
The majority of participants, she said, compete in cycling, track and field and swimming.
When Denise Corbin, a 56-year-old medical coder at UF Health Shands Hospital, competes in the discus throw Saturday, she said she’ll channel her high-school years, when she won gold in the event at her first state meet.
She and her husband started participating in the games about five years ago because it was a bucket-list dream, Corbin said. The motivation to keep going comes from camaraderie with fellow participants — and the hope of winning.
“It is neat meeting people who still compete at our age,” Corbin said.
Sandy Hazeltine, a 64-year-old retired Gainesville resident, said this year will mark her first time at the Senior Games. She will compete in the cycling trials Friday.
To prepare, Hazeltine has been riding her bicycle and lifting weights four times a week for the past three months.
“I would like to at least place in the top three,” Hazeltine said. “That would be nifty.”
