An Olympics which last week saw a 13-year-old script history by winning a gold has now witnessed a 62-year-old grabbing not one but two medals. Participating in his eighth Olympic Games at Tokyo, Australia's Andrew Hoy earned his sixth Olympic medal when he won a bronze in the equestrian individual jumping competition Monday evening, an event which also featured India's Fouaad Mirza.
Born in 1959, the 62-year-old who had earlier in the day also taken a silver in the teams event, is now Australia's oldest Olympic medalist, taking the title from fellow equestrian athlete Bill Roycroft who won eventing team bronze aged 61 at Montreal 1976.
Before landing in Tokyo, the sexagenarian from New South Wales had to his credit four World Championships, two Burghley titles, one Olympic silver medal and three Olympic gold medals that he won consecutively. He is also the only Australian to have ever competed in eight Olympic Games.
Also Read: A 13-year-old wins gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games
"I am so lucky to be able to get up every morning & do what I love most – spend time with & ride my horses. Orange heart Over all of those years, there has been a huge amount of people supporting me. Without them, this would never have been possible. My medals are their medals," the champion athlete tweeted today.
Hoy, who first competed at the Olympics in the 1984 Los Angeles Games and now spends most of his time in the United Kingdom, has no plans of signing off yet.
As per the Olympic records, Oscar Swahn – a shooter from Sweden who won a silver medal in the running deer double-shot team event in the 1920 Antwerp Olympics at the age of 72 years and 280 days – remains the oldest medalist at the Games.
That record could well be in danger if Hoy's plan of participating in the 2032 Brisbane Olympics at home succeeds.
Andrew Hoy has galloped into greatness, becoming Australia's oldest Olympic medallist at age 62 with a #silver and #bronze medal in Tokyo – and he's not finished yet!#Tokyo2020 @7Olympics pic.twitter.com/b29vIzKEnO
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) August 2, 2021
Calling his partner Vassily De Lasso, who won him two Olympic medals at Tokyo, as the "Usain Bolt of horses", Hoy has already set his sight on Paris 2024 and returning to Los Angeles, where it all began, for the 2028 Games.
"In between Paris and Brisbane is going to be Los Angeles, so there is a lot of work to be done," he told the Australian media after the spectacular show on Monday.
In an Instagram chat with his fans in June last year, Hoy had mentioned how an open mind and making efforts to constantly improve his performance has kept him going for so many years.
The equestrian legend also surely knows how to live life to the hilt.
"I'm never thinking, 'Well, I'm now at this age, I should start thinking of retiring,' I'm always looking towards the next thing. For instance, I'm just about to take possession of a brand new truck and trailer and people have said to me, 'Andrew, you should be starting to slow down,' but I'm not interested in doing that. I'm interested in being out there, I always like to be at the pointy end of whatever I'm doing," said Hoy.
It is no wonder then that, with the start of the 2024 Paris Games now less than 1100 days away, this Aussie rider is already gunning for his seventh Olympic medal.
As Hoy said yesterday: "We don’t come to these championships, especially Olympic Games, to finish in fourth, fifth or sixth."
