
Still Running at 119? Not So Fast - takyon
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/sports/119-year-old-runner-world-masters-championships.html?smid=fb-share
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lake99
Rather than fraud or lying, I think Dharam Pal Singh may be simply mistaken.
My grandmother, who would have been in her 90s now, never knew her correct
birthday. She knew her Hindu-calendar birthday, but you can't translate that
to a Gergorian date unless you know the year too. Record-keeping in India was
pretty patchy back in those days.

> _For four years, officials said, they had patiently requested that Dharam
> Pal Singh provide reliable evidence to verify his birth date: school
> records, military records, baptismal records, medical records, school
> records of his children._

Yeah, no. My grandmother could not have done that either. She dropped out
before completing high school. Come to think of it, I haven't seen my father's
birth certificate either. His school records carry a false birthday, which was
pretty common back in the day. If parents wanted to get a child admitted to a
school, but the kid was a few months short of being eligible, the parents
would just pick a suitable date.

