DOUG GILLON IN TODAYS HERALD

Former Watsonian Doug Gillon makes some telling comments in his article today
If Stanley Matthewscould still turn out at 70 does this open the doors at Annieland of some exceptional comebacks
Leaving aside the well documented exploits of Jimmie Currie who else could be persuaded to return to the fray


100-year-old athletes at the Olympics? It may only be a matter of time

THE latest US medical research hints that we may have to revise life expectancy norms.

Heaven forfend – we may still be in a position to write this weekly column 100 years from now!

Leaving aside the social, moral and ethical minefield, such research could even introduce the prospect of near-centenarians representing their country at the highest level in sport and world records being set by people well beyond the biblical span of threescore years and 10.

Those disposed to dismiss this as science fiction do so at their peril. It will be 107 years on Friday since Orville Wright made the first powered flight in Kitty Hawk. How improbable must it have seemed then that less than 66 years later, man would fly to the moon. When that was achieved it used computer power significantly inferior to the laptop on which we wrote today’s column – technology which just about every neighbour within miles now considers about as essential as a tin-opener or a microwave and barely more sophisticated.

All this is prompted by news that scientists at Harvard University Medical School have succeeded in reversing the effects of ageing in mice. The journal, Nature, reported how switching on a vital enzyme succeeded in restoring organ function after they had degenerated to the equivalent level experienced by 80-year-old humans.

The mice grew so many new cells that they were almost completely rejuvenated. They also regained full sexual potency
Doug Gillon
The mice grew so many new cells that they were almost completely rejuvenated. They also regained full sexual potency.

In an era when scientists don’t shrink from creating life, it is inconceivable that they should baulk at pursuing commercial development of what we have dubbed the Methusalah elixir. Transplant surgery had early issues over rejection. Doubtless similar problems will attend development of a drug which it is suggested may double life expectancy.

It seems only a matter of, er, time . . . The Harvard research raises sweeping and fundamental ethical issues. Mankind would surely be better working to eliminate hunger, poverty and diseases like cancer, HIV/Aids and malaria.

Key among considerations is the cost of care of the elderly. Might new drugs reduce that, perhaps even eliminate it? Or if they work only partially, make it even more costly and crippling for society? Or it could add decades of productive life to the workforce? Still, a Scotland squad contender at 80 and ineligible for pensionable retirement until 120?

The elderly (on whose door we would be deemed to be knocking) deserve alleviation of age ailments which Methusalah pills could hold at bay such as dementia, arthritis and joint pain.

For me, however, it’s not how long, but how – it’s about quality of life and personal dignity. Women are not alone in maxing out on botox, plastic surgery and a belief in costly potions pandering to vanity and claiming to reverse ageing. The pursuit of eternal youth is the new religion.

But should we really be actively trying to extend life itself? By 2031, even without Methusalah medication, more than a fifth of the UK population will be over 65 and the country’s fastest growing population will be the over-85s.

But enough – what about sport? Current tales of durability would become the stuff of even greater legend. Harvard research suggests the average mice life-span could double. If eventually replicated in humans this would create a norm in Scotland (current life expectancy of 75 for men and 80 for women) of 150 and 160.

Given the suggestion that vibrancy and vitality could also be doubled, this presents some remarkable prospects of sporting longevity – playing top-flight football beyond 100. The late Sir Stanley Matthews was 41 when he played his last game for England and 50 on his valedictory match for Stoke City in the English First Division. When he damaged a cartilage in an exhibition match – his last, aged 70 – he wrote of “a promising career cut tragically short”. And Scotland’s John Wark and Tommy Hutchison played well into their 40s, the latter finally hanging up his boots at Swansea aged 46.

Harry Beasley won the Grand National aged 39 in 1891 and was challenged to a fight by the jockey of the runner-up, Cloister, whose trainer warned his jockey to back off as he was likely to finish second again. Irishman Beasley was still riding winners aged 80.

Rosemary Chrimes, originally from Kelso, was known as Bud Payne when she won discus gold at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh (her late husband, Howard won the hammer for England). When she last contested the European Masters, two years ago, she won three gold medals. She has set nearly 20 world bests in a range of age groups, and is still competing aged 77, holds the world age-75 record for both shot and discus, and won nine British titles this year, indoors and out.

The former university lecturer, also an accomplished pianist, holds the British high jump record in five age groups, and the discus record at over-35, 40, 45, 55, 60, 65, 70 and 75. She set UK age-75 bests this year in shot and high jump.

Veteran, or masters athletics, is contested in five-year age groups so athletes are repeatedly reborn. The only problem for sport about restoring and regenerating the human body is that it will prolong competitive life.

Sport would be bereft of officials.

This article was originally posted on 15-Dec-2010, 07:46 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 15-Dec-2010, 15:32.