The 95 -year -old Japanese man is the oldest Speedskater in the world

When Iichi Marumo competes in his first international race Seven years ago in MoscowJapanese Speedskater move down the ice at a fast running pace. It took three times for a longer period to cross the finish line from most other skiers on that day.

It does not matter, because Mr. Maromo was also three times larger. He was 88 years old, and his time was still fast enough to earn a silver medal in his 85 -year -old age.

Since then, he only won gold. Now 95, in his last race, a national competition in Japan in January, competing in a category that was created only for him: 95 and above.

To date, he has a category of everything for himself.

“I won a gold medal every time she appears,” said Mr. Maromo in an interview at his home in Chino, a small city in the Honcho Central Mountains, Japanese main island. As evidence, he pulled a plastic shopping bag filled with more than 20 gold medals, including races in the Netherlands and Canada.

A young man with a little deviant and narrow smile, Mr. Maromo was skiing throughout his life, but he started his competitive career in an era in which most people feel lucky because they were still alive. On his wall, Luoines announces from Guinness to be The oldest competitive speeds of males in the world. The closest rival Norwegian skier Who is smaller than five years. (The current oldest active competitor is 80 -year -old Dutch skirt))

The group accommodates the near century of life. Mr. Maromo survived the Second World War despite his volunteering to develop the Camicase mission, and was obtained by the Emperor of Japan to teach him to other farmers how to profit through celery cultivation, and publish a short monthly magazine for traditional Japanese hair.

Speedskater must be of his age no longer involved a great speed. In the pressure pants and the Skintight Racing Suit, mix and slip under the ice, taking care not to fall. However, it is welcomed by enthusiastic chants, which return with a wave and smile.

The race was not even his idea: a friend who convinced him of doing this as a kind of trees. Now he sees it as a fun way to spend his remaining time.

“I never expected to be an international contestant,” said Mr. Maromo.

It has become a simple famous in Japan, a demographic aging community that has been increasingly enthusiastic for the senior sports. The country produces some of the oldest competitors in the world in winter events, including two Japanese women who also hold Guinness’s global records like The oldest landing and Skating across the country. But they are still less than five years or more than Mr. Maromo.

” The Japan Association for Winter Master’s Sports. “He inspires people to try to do what he is doing.”

Mr. Maromo and his fellow athletes with silver hair are also pushing the limits of upper sports. In Speedskating, the term masters is usually used for those between the ages of 30 years and over, but Mr. Marumo is more than three times this age.

At the master’s level, Speedskating is divided into five -year -old age groups, so that expatriates can compete against other similar physical strengths. Since the first local race for Mr. Maromo, in 2016 at the age of 86, the Japan skiing federation was forced to create only three categories for his new age, including 95 and above.

“I hope it will continue until we have to create a new fourth category, for those between the ages of 100 and above.”

Mr. Maromo says he wants to ski when he is 100, although he may not do that. He had some fall, but the worst came during his last race in January. The path was in the open air, and when the starting pistol looked, a snowstorm was detonated. Instead of surrendering, it crawled along the ice to the finish line.

it took 17 minutes to complete it 500 meters cycle.

“The left leg froze from pain, but I had to finish.”

After that, he announced that he was retired from sports before a hernia. But he has since had second ideas and now he says that he would be ran again next year if he feels enough strength.

Mr. Maromo said he was skiing for the first time in 1940, when he was about 10 years old. In those days, connecting hand -made metal blades on a wooden sandal and racing against his classmates in the elementary school through the frozen rice field. His childhood ended at the age of fifteen, when he was convinced of volunteering in the suicide tasks that Japan was fired against Americans applying in the closing days of the Second World War. He was trained to be a radio in a two -seat launcher that was reaching warships, the war ended before sending his plane.

He said that getting a second chance is what he taught to benefit from the maximum life of life. After returning to the farm where he grew up, he saw some celery legs. The vegetables were rare in Japan, but it discovered how to make them thrive in local soil, and convert them into a cash crop in this Alps. In 1970, Emperor Hirohito admitted to Mr. Maromo a prize for enhancing agriculture.

He is also enthusiastic about Tanka, a type of short poem. Mr. Maromo said that rapid rhythms are similar to combat songs that he once convinced to volunteer to die during the war, but he used his poems to celebrate peace. In 2002, he took the magazine designated for Tanka, which he edited and published since then.

After the war, he kept skiing mainly to exercise. As a member of the city council in the late 1980s, Mr. Maromo persuaded the leaders to build a acceleration circuit in the city. But he never imagined that he himself will race a competitive day.

He was already 86 years old when a friend persuaded him to enter a race. The friend told him: “No one is competing for your age.” “You will only get a medal to appear.”

He said that he would become a competitive contestant who did not change his lifestyle. Ski remains its main source of exercise, and it does an additional or no. He said: “My philosophy is not to overdo it.”

It admits that travel can be exhausted, especially long trips abroad, but forgetting it makes it more difficult. He once appeared at the airport without his passport, causing his journey to be missed – and almost the entire competition.

However, Mr. Maromo says he is a drug addict, which has become a new way to celebrate almost a life that was almost shortened – and that he is not ready to abandon it yet.

“I have retired once,” said Mr. Maromo. “I don’t want to do it again.”