>In 1951, at 66 years of age, Håkansson participated out-of-competition in the 1764 kilometer bicycle tour Sverigeloppet from Haparanda to Ystad. Because of his advanced age, the organizers had refused to allow him to participate. The maximum age for race participants was 40 years, but nevertheless he started from Haparanda, formally not among the contestants but starting one minute after the last of them had set off and wearing a shirt on which he had written a big zero as his number tag. The Tour was run in stages, and while the contestants slept, Håkansson would pedal up to three days without sleeping. During the contest, he was presented as "Stålfarfar", a name that had followed him since the late 1940s. He kept a long flowing white beard that made him look even older, and the organizers were afraid people would laugh at the race participants. Many newspapers were covering his story, and he became famous as the nation followed his journey through the country. [3]
During a few hours off in Söderhamn the police asked him to take a medical exam, which showed that Hakansson was in good health. After 6 days, 14 hours and 20 minutes, he arrived in Ystad - 24 hours before the contestants. There was a parade with a marching band, fire brigades and Håkansson seated on the shoulders of younger men. The next day he had an audience with King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.
> In 1983, the 61-year-old potato farmer won the inaugural Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, a distance of 875 kilometres (544 mi). The race was run between what were then Australia's two largest Westfield shopping centres, Westfield Parramatta in Sydney and Westfield Doncaster in Melbourne.[8] Young arrived to compete in overalls and work boots, without his dentures (later saying that they rattled when he ran).[9] He ran at a slow and loping pace and trailed the pack by a large margin at the end of the first day. While the other competitors stopped to sleep for six hours, Young kept running. He ran continuously for five days, taking the lead during the first night and eventually winning by 10 hours. Before running the race, he had told the press that he had previously run for two to three days straight rounding up sheep in gumboots.[10] He said afterwards that during the race he imagined he was running after sheep trying to outrun a storm. The Westfield run took him five days, fifteen hours and four minutes,[1] almost two days faster than the previous record for any run between Sydney and Melbourne, at an average speed of 6.5 kilometres per hour (4.0 mph). All six competitors who finished the race broke the old record. Upon being awarded the prize of A$10,000 (equivalent to $32,067 in 2018), Young said that he did not know there was a prize and that he felt bad accepting it as each of the other five runners who finished had worked as hard as he did—so he split the money equally between them, keeping none.
That's a great achievement. It also illustrates why these long bike races are run in stages. A multi-day race where riders can disregard stages will turn into a nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.
In video game speedrunning, the communities surrounding >24 hour speedruns (e.g. Breath of the Wild 100%) have often set up rules allowing for breaks for runners to sleep. This prevents the speedrun from becoming a competition of who can sleep the least.
> A multi-day race where riders can disregard stages will turn into a nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.
Iditarod and Yukon Quest are both like this - I met someone (who had won the Yukon Quest) that started wearing a helmet mushing because he had passed out from exhaustion and hit his head.
edit/P.S.
When just googling I saw something talking about if these races were cruel to the dogs. While obviously some people have (or continue to) treated their dogs poorly, I must say his dogs clearly lived to run. They were so cute and energetic. He talked about how a woman a couple decades ago schooled all the men in the sport by truly taking care of her dogs, and it seemed like that had a big effect on how he raised his dogs.
> A multi-day race where riders can disregard stages will turn into a nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.
i think the most famous example of this is the RAAM - the race across america (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_America): "In length the RAAM is comparable to the Tour de France, but the races differ to a great extent. The courses of both races have varied over the years. However, in the Race Across America, the direction has always been from the west coast to the east coast of the United States, approximately 3,000 miles (4,800 km), making it a transcontinental event. More importantly, the race has no stages, i.e., it is in principle a nonstop event from start to finish, with the fastest competitors needing slightly over a week to complete the course."
https://www.transcontinental.cc/
The Transcontinental Race is the definitive self-supported bicycle race across Europe. At the sharp end it is a beautifully hard bicycle race, simple in design but complex in execution. Factors of self reliance, logistics, navigation and judgement burden racers’ minds as well as their physiques. The strongest excel and redefine what we think possible, while many experienced riders target only a finish.
The Transcontinental is a single stage race in which the clock never stops. Riders plan, research and navigate their own course and choose when and where to rest. They will take only what they can carry and consume only what they can find. Four mandatory control points guide their route and ensure a healthy amount of climbing to reach some of cycling’s most beautiful and historic monuments. Each year our riders cover around 4000km to reach the finish line.
If you're curious why, the most recent finisher at Barkley, John Kelly (a PhD Data Scientist, to maybe tie it to HN a bit more), blogs a good deal about the 'why' questions on his 'Random Forest Runner' blog (yes, a ML pun). https://randomforestrunner.com/upper-kelly-camp/the-decision...
I still have no interest in doing it, but it was a very interesting look into the thoughts of someone who does.
This used to be the case for the Tour de France. That is, it used to have no stages with night cycling allowed. I think one reason was that contestants would put their bikes into vans and drive at night while the judges couldn’t see them.
Stålfarfar translates as "Steel grandfather" where "steel" also has the connotation of sounding like man of steel (Swedish translation of the Superman superhero).
I checked, Stålmannen (Superman) arrived as a comic in swedish 1949, so before the race. :)
As I heard it, I’d you want to live to 80, you should eat right, exercise regularly, and not smoke. If you want to live to 100, you need to have the right grandparents and can live however you like.
You can't live to 101 without proper genetics. Sport when not overdone improves the quality of life but is not likely to prolong it in any significant way.
>In 1951, at 66 years of age, Håkansson participated out-of-competition in the 1764 kilometer bicycle tour Sverigeloppet from Haparanda to Ystad. Because of his advanced age, the organizers had refused to allow him to participate. The maximum age for race participants was 40 years, but nevertheless he started from Haparanda, formally not among the contestants but starting one minute after the last of them had set off and wearing a shirt on which he had written a big zero as his number tag. The Tour was run in stages, and while the contestants slept, Håkansson would pedal up to three days without sleeping. During the contest, he was presented as "Stålfarfar", a name that had followed him since the late 1940s. He kept a long flowing white beard that made him look even older, and the organizers were afraid people would laugh at the race participants. Many newspapers were covering his story, and he became famous as the nation followed his journey through the country. [3]
During a few hours off in Söderhamn the police asked him to take a medical exam, which showed that Hakansson was in good health. After 6 days, 14 hours and 20 minutes, he arrived in Ystad - 24 hours before the contestants. There was a parade with a marching band, fire brigades and Håkansson seated on the shoulders of younger men. The next day he had an audience with King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_H%C3%A5kansson