This 101-year-old great-grandmother keeps breaking running records


She may be 101, but champion runner Man Kaur refuses to slow down.
This Indian centenarian, who has 14 great-grandchildren, practices for an hour every day — sometimes sprinting, other times shot put and javelin. Kaur only started running in 2009, when her son, Gurdev Singh, suggested she take up track and field, his own hobby. She enjoyed running and Singh, 79, became her coach, helping her shave time off her runs. Seeing how well she was doing, Singh signed her up for the same meets he was competing in, and Kaur has since won 17 gold medals.
In 2017, Kaur won the gold medal for her 81-second 100-meter dash at the Americans Master Games in Canada, and she has broken several records in her age group. She has run in meets in Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, and Malaysia, and is training for September's Asia Pacific Masters Games. Kaur said she isn't in it for the money — in fact, she doesn't receive any prize money, and has to pay to enter the competitions. "It is for our health and at this age, we are winning medals, so people also get inspired," Singh told NPR.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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