Senior athletes still go for the gold

By Joe Earle

Vince Obsitnik started running decades ago just as a way to stay in shape. At age 84, despite heart surgeries and hip repairs, he still runs for exercise several times a week.

Back in the 1990s, after talking to a friend who also was a runner, Obsitnik decided to try a marathon. “I thought, ‘Is it possible I could run 26 miles?’” he said.

It was. Obsitnik ran his first marathon in 1994, when he was in his mid-50s. In the quartercentury-plus since, he’s run seven of the 26-mile road races, he said, and many more half-marathons. He figures he’s run more than 9,000 miles in the past 20 years.

He’s run in places scattered from Boston to South Carolina to New York to Ohio to Slovakia, he said. He ran the Slovakian marathon in 2008, when he was U.S. ambassador to that east European country, where he was born. “I wasn’t the fastest, for sure,” he said. “But it was nice news clip.”

What keeps him going? “It’s a great challenge,” said Obsitnik, who emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1938, when he was two months old. “It makes you feel good. It keeps you healthy, and I do it because I can do it. Thank the Lord, everything’s working. I do it because I like it.”

And he likes to compete.

In May, Obsitnik, a retired corporate executive who now lives in Peachtree City, will join thousands of other senior athletes in Florida in a special athletic competition, the National Senior Games. Obsitnik ran 5-kilometer and 10-kilometer races in the senior games in 2019 and plans to compete again in those events in the 2022 games.

The 2022 games are scheduled for May 10-23 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The first National Senior Games were held in 1987 in St. Louis. They have been staged every other year since, except last year, when, due to the COVID pandemic, the 2021 games were delayed until this year. They attract thousands of competitors aged 50 or older.

In 2019, the games offered competitions in 20 different sports, from archery to volleyball, and attracted 13,882 athletes, according to the games’ webpage.

Competitors must be older than 50 and qualify for the national games by finishing at or near the top of their age groups in state competitions.

As of the end of January, 184 athletes who qualified for the national competition through the 2021 Georgia Golden Olympics, the state qualifying tournament, had registered to take part in the national games, said Vicki Pilgrim, executive director of the Georgia games.

For awards, competitors are divided into groups based on age so they can be compared with others of roughly the same age, Pilgrim said. The groupings divide the competitors into five-year brackets: 50 to 55, 60 to 65, and so forth, up to age 100, Pilgrim said. “We did have a guy who turned 100 last year,” she said. “A golfer.”

Linda Lowery of Smyrna, who’s 70 this year, said she has been competing in the Senior Games since she turned 53. Lowery, a retired DeKalb County physical education teacher and basketball and track coach, has collected stacks of medals in the biennial national games and Georgia’s annual Golden Olympics.

Lowery has claimed gold in various sports, including the long, high and triple jumps, and taken part in competitions spread from Pittsburgh to San Francisco. In May, she said, she plans to compete in the 50-meter run, the long, high and triple jumps, and cornhole events.

What keeps her going back?

“From high school through this point, I’ve just been trying to stay in shape by playing [sports],” she said. “It keeps me in shape, and I get a chance to meet a lot of people, and I get a chance to travel to places I’ve never been.”

Some senior games participants get the chance to tackle less familiar sports. Janice and Scott Mozley said they first took part in the Georgia Games about 11 years ago, after Janice reached age 50, the qualifying age for the games. “Scott said, ‘They’ve got all these sports. Let’s try something,’” recalled Janice, who’s now 61.

They’d long enjoyed competing in sports. Janice played tennis and basketball in high school and fast-pitch softball until her late 30s. Scott Mozley, now 71, played baseball and basketball in high school and junior college.

They heard about the Georgia

Golden Olympics and thought that once Janice turned 50, the entry age for the games, that these Olympics offered a way the couple could compete as a team.

“This gives us something fun and goals to achieve,” Janice Mozley said.

That first year, they decided to compete in badminton. They set up a net in their back yard and played with their kids. They felt pretty good about their chances going in, Janice Mozley said, but things changed once they got to the Games and saw their competitors. “People walked out on the court with – not tennis bags, but badminton bags!” she said. “I didn’t even know they made those. … We thought we’d gotten really good at badminton…. We weren’t as good as we thought we were.”

Still, “we had a ball,” Scott said. “It was a great coming-together of good people wanting to stay fit.”

This year, they won gold medals in pickleball, a game they discovered shortly before they retired from Grayson to Lake Oconee a few years ago. Janice Mozley first saw the game demonstrated during a corporate retreat four or five years ago. “I came back to the hotel and told Scott, ‘We are doing this!’”

Pickleball, a fast-paced combination of tennis, badminton and ping-pong that has been growing in popularity in recent years, seemed to fit the two of them. They learned the game and started competing together in various tournaments, joining with friends so they can

Continued from page mix and match as doubles, singles and mixed doubles teams.

In May, for the 2022 National Senior Games, the Mozleys and four other couples are renting a house in Hollywood, Fla., Janice Mozley said. Four of the couples will be playing pickleball, she said.

Nancy and Tom Lovingood, who live in Hall County, will be tackling quite different sorts of sports. She’s a swimmer. He’s a golfer and bowler. They keep their medals from past senior competitions hanging in the office of their home. The games, they said, provide inspiration to keep competing in sports.

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“When you go to these meets, you see people in their 80s. It’s inspiring,” Nancy Lovingood said. “It keeps you moving. It gives you a goal. … It helps you stay focused.”

It also builds friendships, said Warren Prehmus, the 66-year-old captain of The Georgia Boys, a

Upcoming games

The 2022 National Senior Games are scheduled for May 10-22 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. For more: ngsa.com

The 2022 Georgia Golden Olympics are scheduled for Sept. 27-Oct. 1 in Warner-Robins. The registration deadline is Aug. 1. Athletes competing this year can qualify for the 2023 National games to be held in Pittsburgh, Pa. For more: georgiagoldenolympics.org

3-on-3 basketball team that has been collecting gold medals at the Georgia and national games for more than a decade.

“I love to play ball,” said Prehmus, a financial planner who lives in Peachtree Corners. “It’s a chance to compete. Also, because our team has really developed close relationships. There’s something about being on teams together that other things don’t do. We lift each other up.”

Prehmus said he played basketball in high school in upstate New York and college in Vermont and kept playing after he moved to Atlanta in the mid1980s. The Georgia Boys, he said, have won gold at the Georgia games a dozen times, including last year, and collected gold medals at the national games five times. They’ve traveled the world playing in tournaments.

How many medals has Prehmus collected? “I’ve got a couple of shoeboxes full,” he said. His teammates have scattered a bit in recent years. A couple of them moved to Florida and one moved San Diego. Prehmus himself had surgery recently and won’t be able to play in May, but his team will be competing in the senior games. He plans attend and coach. And, he said, he intends to be back on the court himself by the end of the year.

Senior distance runner Obsitnik said his goal is to keep competing for as long as he can. “I don’t have any date to stop.” he said. “I plan to keep going as long as my body can go. It’s better than sitting around doing nothing and waiting for the final day to come.”

After all, age is just another number on a competitor’s sign-in sheet.

“I don’t think about age,” Obsitnik said. “Age doesn’t enter my mind.”

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