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Stephy Zhang

Showing that age is not a constraint, 51-year-old Uzbekistan gymnast Oksana Chusovitina capped off her seventh Asian Games appearance with a fifth-place finish – 32 years after her first appearance at the regional event.
Competing against athletes young enough to be her daughter, Chusovitina – who made her bow at the 1994 Hiroshima Games – more than held her own in the women’s vault artistic gymnastics final.
Among the 19 athletes competing in the women’s vault on Thursday, 12 were under 21 years old, the second-oldest competitor was 20 years her junior and the youngest was just 16.
While Chusovitina is not the oldest competitor in Nagoya – an honour that belongs to 55-year-old Indian equestrian Shruti Vora – the Uzbek is the highest-profile senior athlete, having won Olympic gold medals and world championship titles.
The youngest competitor, on the other hand, is 11-year-old Japanese esports prodigy Yuki Kurihara, who is one year younger than Hong Kong’s youngest contestants, skateboarders Katniss Wong Yi-huen and Kamus Wong Yeuk-ching.

Chusovitina started gymnastics when she was seven and reached an early career peak at 17 by winning a team gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, followed by two world championship medals before retiring after the 1996 Atlanta Games.
In 2002, she returned to competition to earn prize money to pay for her three-year-old son’s medical bills for his leukaemia, saying at the time: “I don’t dare to grow old until my son is fully recovered.”
The then 27-year-old won two gold medals at the Busan Asian Games that year, her son eventually made a full recovery, and though many expected her to retire, she kept competing.
Three years ago at the Hangzhou Asian Games, when a reporter asked what her best age was, she answered without hesitation: “Now.”
That year, Chusovitina missed out on an Asian Games vault medal by just 0.15 points, but after she earned the highest score at the Asian Championships to help Uzbekistan qualify for this year’s tournament, she returned to once again fight for a place on the podium.
Now competing in her seventh Asian Games, while her peers have long since moved to the stands, she stepped up to the runway to prove that passion has no age limit.

“Performing with kids who are younger than my son … We go out on the field of play and they don’t ask how old you are, [you could be] from 16 and as old as you want to be. That’s why we’re all equal on the field of play,” Chusovitina said.
In the women’s vault final, South Korea’s Yeo Seo-jeong scored 14.483 to claim gold, North Korea’s An Chang-ok won silver with 13.666 and China’s Du Siyu claimed bronze with 13.450.
Chusovitina finished in fifth place with a score of 13.199.


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Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina in action during the women’s vault final at the Asian Games. Photo: Xinhua

Oksana Chusovitina first competed at the Asian Games in 1994. Photo: Reuters

Oksana Chusovitina gestures after the women’s vault final on Thursday. Photo: Xinhua

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Competing against women young enough to be her daughter, the athlete is appearing in her seventh continental multi-sport event


Competing against women young enough to be her daughter, the athlete is appearing in her seventh continental multi-sport event.


Uzbekistan gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, 51, defies the years in Asian Games final

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Competing against women young enough to be her daughter, the athlete is appearing in her seventh continental multi-sport event

Competing against women young enough to be her daughter, the athlete is appearing in her seventh continental multi-sport event