Vieira and Weightman lead strong contingent of flourishing fortysomethings in Budapest

Growing up in Portimao, on the western coast of the Algarve, Joao Vieira idolised the Portuguese master of the marathon, Carlos Lopes.

Vieira was eight years old when Lopes claimed the Olympic marathon title in Los Angeles in 1984, at the age of 37. He was nine when Lopes, wearing the green and white vest of the famous Sporting Lisbon club, set world record figures of 2:07:12 as a 38-year-old at the Rotterdam Marathon the following spring.

“Back then, I would have laughed if you had told me I would be competing in a global championship race at the age of 47,” Vieira mused as he stood, hands on hard-worked hips, beyond the finish line of the opening event of the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23. “I would not have believed you.”

The fact is the 29-time Portuguese champion not only lined up for the men’s 20km race walk but completed the course, after a dramatic two-hour storm delay, finishing a highly creditable 33rd in 1:23:37 in a 50-strong field.

In doing so, fittingly enough in the hallowed Hungarian setting of Heroes’ Square, Vieira strode his way into the record books alongside Jesus Angel Garcia, his former, now-retired rival from Spain, as the most experienced campaigner in any event in the 40-year history of the World Athletics Championships.

Garcia made 13 appearances, winning gold in the 50km event on his debut in Stuttgart in 1993 and bowing out in Doha in 2019 – at 49 years 347 days, the oldest ever World Championships competitor.

At 47, Vieira completed part one of his 13th appearance on Saturday (19). He is also entered for the 35km event on Thursday (24). Beyond that, he has yet to set a finish line to his marathon race-walking career.

Garcia hung up his shoes after his eighth Olympic appearance in Sapporo two years ago, aged 51. “I don’t know if I can make it into my 50s,” said Vieira, who became the oldest male athlete in any event to win a World Championships medal when he took 50km silver in Doha in 2019, aged 43.

“I take my races kilometre by kilometre and my career year by year. The goal now is to make the Olympics in Paris next year. I will be 48 then. After that, if I get the qualifying time, we will see…”

In Budapest, Vieira happens to be the eldest of a huge tally of 23 competitors over the age of 40 – tangible evidence of a growing trend of longevity on the top-level athletics scene.

Asked why he thought this phenomenon might have materialised, the exhausted Peter Pan of the race walk shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” Vieira said. “I suppose it’s different for everybody.”

On the other side of the world, 9,766km away in Canberra, it was a question Dick Telford was keen to ponder after completing his early morning jog.

A sprightly 78, the Australian has first-hand knowledge of enduring sporting excellence. An Aussie Rules footballer with the Collingwood and Fitzroy clubs, he became a 2:27 marathon runner and won the M40 1500m title at the World Veteran Games.

He became the distance running coach at the Australian Institute of Sport, guided Lisa Martin-Ondieki to Olympic marathon silver in Seoul in 1988, and was an adviser to Rob de Castella when he became the first men’s marathon world champion in Helsinki in 1983.

As the head of physiology and applied nutrition at the AIS, he was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2014, so he happens to have quite a handle on this particular subject – not least because he is the long-time coach of the second oldest athlete at the 2023 World Championships.

Lisa Weightman, who runs in the women’s marathon on Saturday (26) is in the form of her life at the age of 44. She clocked 2:23:15 in Osaka in March, leapfrogging her girlhood idol Martin-Ondieki to go third on her national all-time list, behind Sinead Diver and Benita Willis.

“It’s fascinating how it’s going,” said Telford, intrigued by the sheer volume of senior athletics citizens in action in Budapest.

“The thing that first came to mind when you highlighted it is that I have two athletes competing in Europe [though just Weightman in Budapest]: one who’s 44, Lisa, and one who’s just-turned 17, Cameron Myers, who’s been making headlines over here because he recently broke Ingebrigtsen’s world U18 record for 1500m [running 3:33.26 at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia last month].

“I’ve been wondering, ‘What’s different between these two?’ It’s interesting to compare.

“Why has Lisa been able to run better and better as the years have gone by, in every one of the 17 years that I’ve been coaching her, right up to her mid-40s? That would have been unheard of 40 years ago.

“The answer is there’s very little difference between my 44-year-old marathon runner and my 17-year-old 1500m runner.

“When I look at Lisa, her motivation level is higher than ever. Her interest in the sport is higher than ever. Cameron is similar at more than half her age.

“The training is different. If I look at the volume and intensity of Lisa’s workouts, it’s way, way higher than Cameron’s. That’s because she’s become more resilient as she’s got older.

“One reason she’s been able to train longer and with more intensity is that she has better shoes, better tracks to run on and better medical back up. She’s been able to train better at 44 than she could at 28.

“The other one with Lisa is we look at her chronological age and her biological age. She’s been able to adapt her training from 27 to 44 each year – as proven by the fact that she’s been running faster and faster each year.”

But why, physiologically, have 23 over-40s been able to take on the rest, the best, in the world?

“If you look at what’s been happening in Lisa’s journey,” said Telford, “with her continuous adaptation, she’s been able to store more glycogen in her muscles and improve her aerobic threshold – the two main things you’ve got to do in endurance events.

“That shows the resilience she has. Then you put that together with family support. Without a supportive husband, parents, sister and coach – I’m a part of what has been happening too – you would struggle to do it.

“You couldn’t have imagined 40 years ago looking at women spending their lives preparing for elite marathons.

“So, physiological and social positions are changing. It’s a whole person thing: sociological, physiological and psychological. You can’t separate these things.

“It’s a fascinating area.”

Indeed, it is.

All 23 of the over 40s competing in Budapest were born before the inaugural World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1983. The youngest, Stephanie Casey, who lines up in the women’s 35km race walk on Thursday (24) was born on 1 August that year, six days before the opening day of action in the Finnish capital

Also in the women’s 35km race walk field is Viera’s Portuguese teammate Ines Henriques. At 43. she will equal the women’s record of 11 World Championship appearances in any event, a landmark established by another race walker from Portugal, Susana Feitor.

Henriquez is the oldest ever women’s 50km race walk champion, having won gold in London in 2017, aged 37.

The majority of the fortysomething brigade are drawn from endurance events: 13 marathon runners and four race walkers. Notably, 15 of the 23 are women.

At 44, the French discus thrower Melina Robert-Michon is competing in her 10th World Championships. The silver medallist in Moscow in 2013 and bronze medal winner in London in 2017, she threw 61.82m in qualifying on Sunday (20) to make it through to her ninth successive world final on Tuesday (22).

She and Vieira are the only two athletes at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 who took part in the European Championships here back in 1998.

A silver medallist at the World U20 Championships on home soil in Annecy earlier that summer, Michon failed to make it beyond the qualifying round in the Hungarian capital. Vieira finished 20th in the 20km race walk.

Simon Turnbull for World Athletics