Sochi notebook: 40-somethings on the attack at the Winter Games

Editor’s note: Al Jazeera contributor Aimee Berg is on the ground in Sochi, and her notebook is filling up quickly. This is the first in an occasional series of short items of interest from the 2014 Winter Games.

On Saturday, Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen won his 12th Olympic medal, moving into a tie for the title of most decorated winter Olympian of all time. By winning that 10-kliometer biathlon sprint, he also became the oldest Winter Olympic gold medalist in an individual event, at 40 years, 12 days. If Bjoerndalen earns a 13th medal Monday, in the 12.5-kilometer pursuit, the six-time Olympian could surpass his countryman Bjorn Daehle, whose dozen medals came in cross-country skiing from 1992 to 1998. 

If British skeleton athlete Kirstan Bromley takes gold in his fourth Olympics on Saturday, he could overtake Bjoerndalen as the oldest individual gold medalist. At 41, the Ph.D. in engineering has competed in every Winter Olympics since skeleton was reintroduced to the games in 2002 after a 54-year hiatus. Bromley’s fifth- and sixth-place finishes in 2006 and 2010, respectively, have only deepened his hunger for victory in his final Olympic appearance.

“I’ve been on the trot for 20 years now,” said the scientist, referring precisely to the month he began sliding two decades ago.

Bjoerndalen and Bromley may still have what it takes to earn a medal, but the oldest athlete in Sochi will be more likely to turn heads with his Mariachi-themed ski suit than his speed on the slalom course. Mexico’s 55-year-old Hubertus von Hohenlohe made his Olympic debut at the 1984 Sarajevo Games, as Hubertus von Furstenberg, and is known in Europe as pop star “Andy Himalaya.”

In the men’s downhill Sunday, Matthias Mayer of Austria captured a surprise gold medal, one-upping his father Helmut Mayer, who had been the super-G silver medalist at the 1988 Calgary Games.

It was just the latest edition of the family theme that began Saturday night when 19-year-old Canadian Justine Dufour-Lapointe and her older sister, Chloe, went first and second in women’s moguls — marking the third sister act to take gold and silver at the Winter Games. The others were Marielle and Christine Goitschel of France, who took gold and silver (twice) at the 1964 Innsbruck Games in slalom, then switched places in giant slalom; and Austrian lugers Doris and Angelika Neuner in 1992.