Sports Stars Over 40 Who Still Have a Long Way to Go

Kelly Slater is the most successful of all surfers, he has just won the prestigious Pipeline Pro in Hawaii again - at the age of 50. Now he is faced with the big question: Continue and get his 12th world championship title - or yet slowly retire?

Those who know Slater are sure: He keeps surfing. Surfing is his life. His surfing career flawless and remarkable. In 1992, the 50-year-old got his first record: as the youngest world champion in surfing. Maybe - who knows - he will also get the record: Oldest world champion in surfing. Fingers crossed!

At 63, German Bernhard Langer was the oldest golfer in history to secure a starting spot at the legendary Masters at the end of 2020 - and Langer even made the cut at the tournament, which he had already won in 1985 and 1993. Langer also took part in the Masters again in 2021. Langer has actually been playing in the Champions Tour, the over-50 tournament series in professional golf, since 2007, and has already earned more than $30 million in prize money with 43 tournament victories there alone. Two victories separate Langer there only from the eternal tournament victory record.

At 57, Ni Xia Lian was the oldest female table tennis player in history at the Tokyo Olympics. "We can't fight against nature. I know my weaknesses - I'm short [1.57m], I don't have that much spin, I can't play the sport more athletically. But I have my advantages. I love the game and I will never give up," she said of her aspirations at the Games, where she went without a medal.

That the Chinese-born player, who moved to Europe in 1989 and has since played for Luxembourg, is still one of the best at the plate, she proved a few months later at the 2021 World Table Tennis Championships in November. There, she sensationally took bronze in doubles at the age of 58. It was her first World Championship medal since the 1985 World Championships in Gothenburg. At the 1983 World Cup in Tokyo, she even won twice gold and once bronze.

At 54 years old now, Japan's Kazuyoshi Miura has accomplished something that no professional footballer before him has: Miura's professional career now spans five decades, from the 1980s to the 2020s. As a 15-year-old, he left Japan for Brazil in 1982 to make the leap to professional. After stations, among others, at FC Genoa in Italy or Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia and 89 international matches, he returned to Japan in 1999 - and still kicks there as a professional.

On September 23, 2020, the striker became the oldest kicker in the world to play in a match in a country's top division. He is currently on loan from Yokohama FC to the Suzuka Point Getters. He is still not thinking about quitting: "I want to continue playing seriously even at 60, in a real league. I want to be a lifelong footballer."

At 50, Pravin Tambe is considered the oldest active professional cricketer in the world. Curiously, the Indian-born player made his debut in the Indian Premier League - the best cricket league in the world - at the age of 41, when most professionals have long since ended their careers. He currently plays for the Trinbago Knight Riders in the Caribbean Premier League. Meanwhile, in India, filming has been underway since the end of 2021 on a feature film based on Tambe's career.

When Claudia Pechstein competed in her first Olympic Games in Albertville in 1992, the speed skating competitions were still held outdoors. In 2022, the Berlin-based athlete competed at the Olympics for the eighth time - at the age of 49. Only ski jumper Noriaki Kasai took part in as many Winter Games. To be sure, Pechstein was unable to add another Olympic career medal to her nine. But the fact that she still runs with almost 50 in the extended world's top is impressive.

Together with bobsled pilot Francesco Friedrich, she was flag bearer of the German Olympic team. In 2017, she also advanced to the oldest World Cup winner in speed skating history at the age of 45. And: in Germany, Pechstein is still unchallenged. At the German championships in the fall of 2021, Pechstein won her 40th and 41st national championships.

Rune Glifberg was already a virtual skater in the Tony Hawk video games when his current opponents were not even born. The Dane has been a pro skater since 1992, clearing medals at the X Games as early as the mid-nineties. But perhaps his greatest performance came in Tokyo at the age of 46: Glifberg opened the Park Competition at the Olympic premiere of his sport. In addition to his skating premiere - only recently was "The Danish Destroyer" as a starter at an event organized by Tony Hawk in California, Glifberg is active as an architect and event organizer.

By the way, Glifberg was not the only 46-year-old skater in Tokyo: South African Dallas Oberholzer was just a few months younger than him. Oberholzer can also look back on an eventful career: he was once, among other things, Janet Jackson's chauffeur.

Even at 40 years Serena Williams dream lives on: A Grand Slam title is still missing the U.S. American to draw level with the 24 titles of the eternal record winner Margaret Court. In 2021, injuries repeatedly threw a spanner in the works for Williams. Because of the few tournaments played, she has now even fallen out of the top 100 of the WTA rankings.

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But that she still has what it takes to great triumphs, she showed with her semi-final appearances at the Australian Open 2021 and the US Open 2020. That Williams has comeback qualities, she showed during her comeback after her break from professional sports during her pregnancy in 2017. In the two following years, the American made it to no less than four Grand Slam finals.

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