93-Year-Old Sprinter: Muscle Secrets to Healthy Aging

At 93 years old, Italian sprinter Emma Maria Mazzenga holds the women’s over-90 200-metre world record of 50.33 seconds, set in 2024 at age 91, while her ongoing athletic training provides scientists with rare physiological insights into how exercise can alter the physical decline of aging.

Pre-Race Nerves and Training Routine at 93

Most athletes do not contend with the specific kind of pre-race anxiety that hits a nonagenarian world-record holder. On race days, the tension remains palpable for the veteran sprinter. On race day, I’m very tense, she said, according to cbc.ca. People ask to interview me, and I tell them: Don’t come near me until I’ve run.

Born on Aug. 1, 1933, Mazzenga maintains a rigorous physical schedule that involves training three times a week. Her workouts focus strictly on short repeats ranging between 50 and 200 metres, because slow jogging fails to hold her interest. That intensity has powered a career spanning four decades, encompassing 11 world titles, 31 European championships, and 115 Italian races.

The motivation driving her forward is not simply collecting medals against competitors. In her home country, she faces no active challengers in her age bracket. I come first because I have to. I’m the only one, she noted, as reported by cbc.ca. I can’t get any emotion out of that. Instead, she treats the stopwatch as her primary opponent. If I win with a mediocre time, it gives me no satisfaction.

Scientific Study on Muscle Fibers and VO2 Max

Those dominant times eventually caught the attention of researchers studying human longevity. Antonio La Torre, a scientist at the University of Milan and technical director of Italy’s athletic federation, connected researchers two years ago to investigate her exceptional physical capacity. Martino Franchi, an associate professor of human physiology at the University of Padua, explained the initial intrigue: We were told there was this woman who was able to run 200 metres in a very short time. But it was her age that we were really interested in.

Mazzenga became an extreme case study for the Trajector-Age project, a two-year initiative tracking how metabolism, nerves, heart, and muscles change in adults over 50. Researchers subjected the then-90-year-old athlete to demanding cycling tests and extracted muscle biopsies from her thigh. The laboratory results revealed a maximal oxygen consumption, or VO2 max, comparable to a typical person in their 50s. And she’s 90, Franchi said, via cbc.ca. This is fantastic.

The microscopic analysis of her muscle tissue yielded an even bigger surprise. While she has experienced some loss of the fast-twitch fibers required for explosive bursts, the decline is less severe than normal. More remarkably, her slow-twitch, fatigue-resistant fibers retained exceptional sizing. They are as big as a girl in her 20s, Franchi stated. That’s unique.

These oversized endurance fibers likely compensate for the lost fast-twitch elements, allowing her to sustain pace while aging at a much slower rate. The findings were published earlier this year across two papers in the Journal of Applied Physiology, earning lead scientist Marta Colosio an award at the American Physiology summit.

Four Decades on the Track Since Returning in 1986

Mazzenga initially competed as a university student in Padua before stepping away from the sport for 30 years. During that hiatus, she taught high school biology and raised two children largely as a single mother following the death of her husband. Her return to competitive athletics happened in 1986 at age 53, when the president of her former university running club recruited alumni for the emerging masters circuit for athletes over 35.

One by one, my friends quit, she recalled. I keep going. Among her extensive collection of victories, her proudest achievement remains her first world title: the W75 400-metre race at the 2011 World Masters Athletics Championships in Sacramento, California. There were just a handful of us Italians. I found myself alone on the podium, she said.

Reflecting on her trajectory, Mazzenga rejects the notion that severe physical deterioration is entirely predetermined by the calendar. I always say that if I had been sitting on the sofa, I would have aged differently, she noted.

That philosophy resonates directly with researchers like Franchi, who used the data to encourage his own father to return to physical training during pandemic lockdowns to combat sarcopenia—the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength. As for newcomers considering sports late in life, Mazzenga offers a pragmatic, humorous perspective. Asked what she would tell an 80- or 90-year-old thinking about starting out, she laughs: You’d want to start a little earlier.