101-year-old Indian athlete Man Kaur finishes 100-meter sprint at World Masters Games

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A 101-year-old runner who has been dubbed the “miracle from Chandigarh” by New Zealand media celebrated her latest gold medal with a modest little dance after winning the 100-meter sprint at the World Masters Games on Monday.

Man Kaur, who hails from India, ran the race in 1:14:00 – a time that the Times of India cheekily reports is “a mere 64.42 seconds off” Usain Bolt’s world record – and could have taken her sweet time because she was the only athlete competing in her 100-and-over age category in the Auckland competition.

“I enjoyed it and am very, very happy,” she told reporters through an interpreter, according to the Times. “I’m going to run again, I’m not going to give up. I will participate, there’s no full stop.”

Kaur had no previous running experience when her son, Gurdev Singh, invited her to join him on the international masters games circuit. “‘You have no problem, no knee problem, no heart problem, you should start running,'” he recalled telling her in an Associated Press interview last summer.

She was 93 at the time.

Since then, she and her son, who is 79, have been regulars on the circuit and Kaur has more than 20 medals, including winning the shot put and javelin in the American Masters games last summer.

“When she wins, she goes back to India, and she’s excited to tell others, ‘I have won so many medals from this country,’ ” Singh said. “Winning makes her happy.”

Kaur runs five or 10 short distances every evening in her hometown of Chandigarh. And her secret may be a strict diet that, her son told Indian Weekender, includes wheat grass juice and a daily glass of kefir.

(The Washington Post)