96-year-old woman to run Delhi Half-Marathon

It was back in 2008 when Mann Kaur became convinced that she could compete in running races. That summer she was visiting her son Gurdev Singh, who now lives in Canada and is an avid runner himself at 75.

“In 2008, I went to Canada for the World Masters Championship where I saw a participant named Olga, who was 90 years old. It was then that I convinced my mother to take up athletics,” Singh is quoted by the New York Daily News.

Gurdev convinced her that she was more than fit enough to compete at various distances, and in 2011 at the World Masters Athletic Championship in Sacramento, she won the 100m and 200m.

Kaur and her son have been training together for this Sunday’s Dehli Half-Marathon. The Indian race is among the most prestigious 21.1K races in the world, carrying IAAF “gold label” status. The 96-year-old will be the oldest runner in the field.

World Masters Athletics does not keep records of the half-marathon, as it is not an officially recognized distance, but Kaur will no doubt challenge for a record time, if not a record in terms of being the oldest woman ever to have run the distance.

The world record for oldest woman to have run a marathon is held by Gladys Burrill, who completed the 2011 Honolulu Marathon in 9:53. Canadian born Mavis Lindgren still holds the 90+ world record time of 8:53:08, set in 1997.

Last fall, 100-year-old Fauja Singh became the oldest man to have ever run a marathon when he crossed the finish line at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

Note: The 2009 WMA Championship was not held in Canada, but in Lahti, Finland. There was no world championship in 2008, apart from an indoor meet held in France. The “Olga” that Singh is referring to is Canadian Olga Kotelko, the 93-year-old age group world record holder in several track and field events. Kotelko didn’t participate in the 2008 indoor championship, but did participate in both the 2007 World Championship in Riccione, Italy, as well as the 2008 event in Lahti. The 2010 WMA World Indoor Championship was held in Kamloops, B.C., where both Kotelko and Gurdev Singh did compete.