Michelle Provost-Craig's research subjects are spending their golden years going for the gold.

The group with which she has worked includes a championship sprinter who started running after she was diagnosed with breast cancer 17 years ago at age 63, a 60-something widow who credits competitive bicycling with giving her a new lease on life after the death of her husband and a team of ice hockey players in their 80s who call themselves The Geri-Hat Tricks.

"When I went to the National Senior Olympics Summer Games in 1999, it was my first exposure to the organization, and I was just flabbergasted," says Provost-Craig, an associate professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Sciences studying the older athletes who participate in the Senior Olympics. "To meet people in their 70s and 80s who were not just physically active, but in better shape than many 40-year-olds, was just phenomenal."

The National Senior Games Association, founded in 1985 and based in Baton Rouge, La., is a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee. It serves 250,000 athletes, age 50 and older, who participate in local Senior Games events in all 50 states and in national summer and winter competitions.

Provost-Craig presented her research proposal at the organization's Summer Games in September 1999 and was invited to begin studying the athletes as part of a collaborative project with researchers from Loma Linda University's School of Public Health in California. Provost-Craig, Jennifer Mason from Loma Linda and five graduate assistants, including UD's Sarah Witkowski, HNS 2000M, collected data at the 2000 Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y.

The researchers, who called their group TEAM, or Team of Experts in Athletic Medicine, surveyed the athletes about their health habits, medical histories, diets and the incidence and severity of any injuries they had sustained. They also performed various screenings, including monitoring the athletes' heart rates and lactic acid levels during competition, testing their pulmonary function, assessing their psychological state and analyzing their body composition, bone density and cholesterol levels. In what Provost-Craig describes as a "marathon" of testing, the research TEAM worked 20-hour days during the weeklong Winter Games. In all, they collected data on 85 athletes during competition and obtained survey data from more than 200.

"When I began this research, I assumed that most senior athletes would be people who have been blessed by good fortune or good genes," Provost-Craig says. "That turned out not to be true. Most of these athletes have faced the normal trials, from serious illness to the loss of loved ones. It's really their attitude that seems to set them apart."

One indication of their positive attitude, she says, is that, as a group, the athletes are "the only older people I've ever known who are eager for their next birthday." Because the athletes compete according to age, with five- or 10-year groupings, a 79-year-old who's the oldest in his competitive group knows that his next birthday will make him suddenly the youngest in the next classification and, therefore, improve his chances of winning a medal.

Witkowski, who now works as a research associate for the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, says many of the senior athletes she's met have not only faced the usual difficulties of aging but have used athletics to survive and thrive.

"It was inspiring to see how active they are and how, in many cases, they either use sport to help them get through challenging life events or still participate in spite of disease or illness," she says. "It certainly made me realize, especially from a public health standpoint, that no one has an excuse not to exercise or have healthy life behaviors."

Participants in the Senior Games welcomed the research and were eager to share their histories and experiences, Provost-Craig says, adding, "Every athlete has a story." Many--especially older women, who often lacked the opportunity to play sports in their youth--began competing relatively late in life, she notes. For example, the 80-year-old who didn't begin exercising until after her breast cancer diagnosis now holds a world record in sprinting. She and other athletes have praised the psychological and social benefits of competing, including forming new friendships and overcoming the sense of isolation that can be common among the elderly, Provost-Craig says.

At the Winter Games, the researchers studied athletes competing in downhill and cross-country skiing, curling and ice hockey. In the future, Provost-Craig says, she'd like to conduct research at the Summer Games, which feature more events and attract a greater number of athletes. She also would like to target her research more narrowly in the future and work with the state games in Delaware and neighboring states, while Loma Linda researchers do additional studies in California.

She believes the research is of increasing interest to Americans as the population ages and that it can be applied to everyone, not just athletes. It's been well-documented, she says, that regular exercise can retard the physiological effects of aging by as much as 50 percent and can mean the difference between an elderly person who is able to live independently and one who cannot rise from a chair without assistance. Senior Olympians, Provost-Craig believes, can teach everyone some important lessons.

"These athletes are really models of successful aging," she says. "They provide a gold standard for the rest of us."

Witkowski adds that she found the research project professionally rewarding because of its practical applications. "It was easy to see the benefits that the information [we were gathering] would give," she says. "Not only did all the athletes involved learn more about themselves, their bodies and their performances, but the information will help to give researchers, clinicians and the public a clearer idea of the capacity of the human body as we age."

The National Senior Games Association welcomes the research as well, says David Hull Jr., president and CEO. One of the organization's missions is to work with government agencies and universities "to better understand and support healthy aging initiatives for seniors," he says.

--Ann Manser