Oldest and best: Five 'senior' athletes who can match Carlos Sainz

With three wins already under his belt before Dakar Rally 2024 title Carlos Sainz had nothing to prove in this years event especially as he also had two World Rally championship titles to his name But the 61yearold struck a stunning blow for the more senior sportsmen and women around by claiming his fourth Dakar Rally 2024 in Saudi Arabia on Friday to become the oldest winner of the gruelling race In that vein MidDay picks out five other sexagenarians and older who have rocked the sporting world Eliza Pollock 63 archeryWhen the 1904 Olympics were held in St Louis 63yearold Eliza Pollock made the 350mile journey from Cincinnati where she competed for the local archery club to take part Sadly for Pollock she had a younger sharpereyed nemesis in Lida Howell her Cincinnati Archers teammate who took both individual gold medals Emma Cooke a sprightly 56 took both silvers leaving Pollock to pick up the two bronzes Aged 63 years and 333 days when she not surprisingly won the team gold Pollock is the oldest womens Olympic gold medallist British equestrian competitor Lorna Johnstone is the oldest female Olympian aged 70 when she took part in her third Games in 1972SOMOS CAMPEONESTengo la suerte de tener a mi lado al mejor Has hecho un dakar fantaacutestico LucasCruz74 Todo esto es gracias a ti pictwittercomnZ1wjglQEfmdash Carlos Sainz CSainz_oficial January 19 2024Oscar Swahn 64 shootingQuite apart from having probably the most impressive beard ever to appear at the Olympics it was thick and white and reached halfway down his chest Oscar Swahn is also the oldest person ever to win Olympic gold pipping Pollock by almost a year Born in 1847 the Swedish Swahn would have entered this list if he had packed it in after his first Olympics in 1908 when aged 60 he won two gold medals in the running deer single shot individual and team and a bronze medal in the running deer double shot individual But he returned for his home Games in Stockholm four years later winning the gold in the running deer team event at the age of 64 years and 258 days Still not satisfied Swahn and his beard pitched up in Antwerp in 1920 A silver medal in the running deer team event made the 74yearold the oldest medallist at any Olympics a record that is unlikely ever to be brokenSatchel Paige 59 baseball Pitcher Satchel Paige did not become a champion after the age of 60 but did play his last pro baseball game on June 21 1966 for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League when he was just two weeks short of his 60th birthday and given the confusion around his actual date of birth he gets a pass After 24 years in Negro League baseball Alabamaborn Paige made his MLB debut for Cleveland Indians in 1948 a year after Jackie Robinsons appearances for the Brooklyn Dodgers broke the segregation barrier Paige was 42 at the time still the oldest to make his debut and pitched Cleveland to the World Series He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971Also ReadThe marvel that is Rohit SharmaFred Davis 67 snookerbilliardsAn eighttime World Snooker Championship winner from 1948 to 1956 Fred Davis had two major obstacles in his professional career First was that his brother was 15time world champion Joe Davis so Fred could never really claim to be the best in his family and the second was two heartattacks The second of these occurred not long before the 1974 world championships when at the age of 61 the Englishman beat Alex Higgins 1514 on the way to the semifinals where he lost to eventual winner Ray Reardon He reached the semis again four years later and made his last world championship appearance aged 70 His last pro match came in 1992 at the age of 79 He always maintained that billiards rather than snooker was his first love so it was fitting that his last triumph on the baize came in 1980 when at the age of 67 he won the World Billiards Championship He reached the final again three years later losing to Rex WilliamsSobieslaw Zasada 91 rally When it comes to rally driving it appears that Sainz is but a schoolboy in short pants when set beside the Polish driver Sobieslaw Zasada Only a stripling of 38 when he claimed the first of three European Rally Championship titles Zasada made his WRC debut in 1973 aged 43 He then retired until 2021 when he returned for the WRCs Safari Rally in Kenya His race sadly did not turn out well a series of collisions ruling him out on the opening day But at 91 years of age he is easily the oldest competitor ever in WRCWith AFP inputs