A 52-year-old Olympian? Austria’s Claudia Riegler turns back the clock on her snowboard

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — When Claudia Riegler started speaking about her snowboarding rivals at the Winter Olympics, she had a verbal slip that confirmed an obvious truth.

“I never think about age,” she said. “If I’m racing, I even don’t know how old the girls are.”

Then, she did a quick, embarrassed double-take. 

“The girls!” she said. “Now, it sounds really like I am older!”

Riegler isn’t one of the girls. In fact, she could be their mother, or even grandmother. But how many of them will be able to say they are a proud Olympian at 52 years old?

This Austrian über veteran competed in her fifth Winter Games on Sunday when she raced in the parallel giant slalom in the sunbaked Italian Alps.

That in itself is some achievement, especially given the talent that snow-crazed Austria churns out.

Yet she wasn’t just here to pick up another participation certificate. Riegler showed she still could carve through the gates with the best in the world. She dug in and made the cut for the elimination rounds, right on the cusp, finishing No. 16 from the qualifying field of 36 riders.

That paired her with two-time defending gold medalist Ester Ledecka, 22 years her youth.

Nobody expected Riegler to pull off an upset against Ledecka. That fell to fellow Austrian Sabine Mayer, who stunned Ledecka in the quarterfinals on her way to winning the silver. But if you are going to go out, it might as well be to the sport’s GOAT.

Riegler finished 1.13 seconds behind Ledecka, a considerable gap but not one that caused any shame.

Only when Riegler, her day done, took off her ski helmet emblazoned with a fierce white wolf could you see the gulf in years that separated her from her rivals, which included one 16-year-old.

“I’m really proud that I’m here today and that I had a really good run against Ester,” she said. “I’m happy that I made it to the finals today and I even made a really good final run.”

Riegler made her Olympic debut at Salt Lake City in 2002, one year before the new gold medalist, Czech rider Zuzana Maderova, was born.

Not many months after the Olympic debut, when she was 29, her Austrian team coach said she was over the hill and dropped Riegler from the team.

Yet what could’ve been the end turned out to be the fuel that has kept her going for two more decades.

“I have to say my biggest motivation now is my age because I was kicked out of the team when I was 30 and they told me I’m too old,” Riegler said. “So at that moment I said to myself, no, it was not over. I will continue by myself. And if he’s saying this, it doesn’t have to be the truth. I have to find my own truth. That’s the thing which is motivating me a lot.”

So she kept training and eventually, after three years and a coaching change, she was back riding in Austria’s red-and-white.

She went on to win the parallel giant slalom world championship in 2015, while adding up over 400 World Cup starts.

Now she is going home satisfied that she didn’t show her age in Livigno.

Riegler is not alone among older racers

An alternate for the American curling team, Rich Ruohonen, is 54 at these Games. (He has yet to compete.)

But an action sport such as Parallel giant slalom (PGS), where snowboarders zigzag through gates over a short course to see which reaches the bottom first, seems to befit older athletes.

The men’s gold medalist Sunday was 40-year-old Ben Karl, another Austrian, who successfully defended his title won in 2022.

To celebrate he tore off his shirt and flexed his muscles, showing no signs of a “dad bod” even though he’s middle aged.

“You saw me with my naked body and I think you can be super good in shape until 40 and maybe until 50, I don’t know,” he said. “There is no reason to slow down with my age.”

More evidence for PGS being an elixir of athletic youth: Men’s silver medalist Kim Sangkyum is 37, while another top male rider in Sunday’s lineup was the 45-year-old Roland Fischnaller.

It must be something in the snow.

Or, as Ledecka’s coach, ex-snowboarder racer Justin Reiter, pointed out, racers don’t suffer the same injuries and overall wear and tear that the halfpipe daredevils do when attempting their aerial stunts.

“When you get a little bit older and the knees get a bit creaky, you tend not to ride rails that are in the park or do jumps,” Reiter said. “You tend to ride on your edges and carve and turn. And so you have this return to the roots of snowboarding.”

For Riegler, it’s about cycling and weight training, and a good dose of belief. That said, she is eyeing after next year’s world championships in her home country as the moment to lay down the board for good.

“I think would be a really nice ending for me,” she said.

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics