Sport: Why a 100-year-old still goes to the gym

Rita Lord slips into her sneakers and off we go. At 100 years, she still trains regularly in the gym: first it goes to the belly trainer, after which devices for the back and shoulder come. She doesn’t want to take a break. “And what’s next?” She asks her trainer with a laugh.

Lord loves sport: “I was on the move for the whole life.” She had done so many sports: ice skating, tennis, gymnastics, rhön bike gymnastics, swimming and particularly happy to ski. “At 90 I drove down the red slope in the Zillertal in Austria,” says the mother of four and five times grandma.

Moving to move, you just enjoy it. “It’s life for me. There is no other way. I can’t put myself in the armchair,” she says in her house in Bernkastel-Kues on the Moselle and straight out pictures of the past that she shows on the slopes, on the ice and on the tennis court.

As a 100-year-old, she does not have a sports program like many younger ones: once a week she goes to the gym, then there is still a gymnastics course, swimming and bridge as a thinking on the agenda. In addition, a few kilometers walk to the Moselle every day. “And in the morning I do 20 minutes of gymnastics in bed.”

It does not have to overcome an inner bastard. “Discipline in old age is everything,” says the Lower Franconian from Bad Kissingen, who came to the Moselle in 1954 because of her husband in Bernkastel-Kues. “I always say: if I want something, then I have to do it. And I just do it!”

With her willpower, she impresses the team in the gym: “It is still very ambitious,” says Carsten Braun in Mülheim. For her age, Lord is “above average fit”. She does some younger seniors “definitely before”. Lord is “a role model for many,” says the coach.

As an honorary member of the club, the 100-year-old no longer pays a contribution. It has been there since the SFG was founded in 1962, which at that time was still called Post-Sport-Verein. “I founded the women’s department here,” she says.

In the studio, one of Lords Bridge partners, Doris Weinand. “Rita is an exceptional personality,” says the 71-year-old. Lord has an “incredibly strong will”, is very sporty and also mentally fit. They had been playing in a group of women in Bridge for seven years.

However, the 100-year-old has already said goodbye to some beloved activities. This includes skiing: “I would still like to, but my children don’t want it anymore,” she says with a smile. And she no longer drives with her green Cabrio MG Midget. The classic car is now in the garage. “I did my last trip with it last year.”

Her husband, with whom she was running a business for winegrowers and agriculture for many years, has been dead for a good 20 years. Lord is still throwing the household in her own four walls, one of her sons lives over her. “I get along well. Don’t matter,” she says.

She doesn’t like “senior afternoons” at all. “So when I see people there: they sit there and drink coffee. They don’t do anything.” It is not for her: “It doesn’t build me up. I build myself alone.”

She has had a rollator for support for a few weeks. “Muscle weakness,” she says and rubs over her thighs. And the doctor would have said. “My God, I have to get something.” And points to her rollator: “The thing is my new MG,” she says, laughing.