Extra year helps older athletes
DÜSSELDORF, Germany — Even if it takes an extra year, Nino Salukvadze still will be aiming for an Olympic record.
This shooter from Georgia has competed at every Olympics since 1988, when she won a gold medal for the Soviet Union. At the Tokyo Olympics — now postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic — she will set a women’s record of nine appearances, and she is happy to wait for it.
“We’re restructuring my training, and there’s nothing terrible about that. The main thing is health,” Salukvadze said in a telephone interview from her home in the South Caucasus nation.
Salukvadze is one of a host of Olympic veterans taking the extra year in stride. There’s also 37-year-old American hurdler Lolo Jones, who is hoping to return to the track in Tokyo, and Uzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, who has qualified for her eighth Olympics — breaking her own record in the sport. Chusovitina has considered retirement before, but this time, the 1992 gold medalist said Tokyo will be her final Olympics.
“It’s already good that they have postponed. Everything will calm down and everything will be fine, and I think then the Olympics will go ahead as normal,” said Chusovitina, 44, who is training in restricted conditions because of the pandemic. “I want to compete in Tokyo and retire.”
Chusovitina said Uzbek officials sent her home from a training center after the Olympics were postponed, leaving her to spend unexpected downtime with her husband and dogs. It’s a rare quiet point in her uniquely longrunning gymnastics career. Chusovitina has been competing at elite level since the 1980s, long before most other current gymnasts were born.
Salukvadze hasn’t set a date for retirement, but said each Olympic cycle is tougher than the previous one. Experience is a strength, though.
The delay caused by the outbreak might even be a boost to the 51-yearold Salukvadze’s hopes of adding to her career tally of one gold, one silver and one bronze in shooting. She had eye surgery in December. For now, she is in limited fitness and air pistol training at home with her son Tsotne Machavariani, a shooter who competed at his first Olympics in 2016.
They are in isolation for 14 days after returning home from neighboring Azerbaijan.
Salukvadze secured a qualifying spot in 2019 and the International Shooting Sport Federation said it will confirm already-qualified athletes despite the postponement. When the Tokyo Olympics happen — no new date has been selected — Salukvadze will pull ahead of the two other eight-time female Olympians with whom she shares the record.
German-Italian canoeist Josefa Idem retired after the 2012 Olympics and Canadian rowing cox Lesley Thompson-Willie moved into coaching since her final Olympic appearance in 2016. The all-time record holder, male or female, is 73-year-old Canadian show jumper Ian Millar, who was in 10 Olympics.