Land Rover G4 Challenge International Selection

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Older and Wiser

Phil Vaughan / 01.02.2006

As the pace hots up one finalist is revelling in the competition – at an age when most people are contemplating a quiet retirement, rather than cold camping and vigorous adventure.

Fifty-year-old Takashi Sugiyama is the oldest of the 54 hopefuls – most are in their twenties and thirties. ‘It’s not hard being older,’ he said, as he dried off after rolling his kayak in the bitterly cold water of Eastnor Castle lake. ‘You don’t have the speed or power but it’s the experience that really counts and the will-power not to give up.\'

‘The older you get the more experience you have with different events and the more chance you have to do well. I’ve taken part in adventure races, orienteering, skiing, hang gliding, windsurfing … but International Selections lets me do so many of them in one week. It’s the complete event!’

Takashi believes 2006 could be his best chance of winning a place on the Challenge. ‘This is my golden opportunity. I’ve been training the Japanese orienteering team, who are mostly in their twenties and thirties, I’m currently very fit. It won’t be the same in two years time.’

If he is successful at International Selections, Takashi hopes he will inspire others of the same age to get up and compete. ‘I want to be a role model to other 50-year-olds, even 60-year-olds,’ he said. ‘I think it’s a bad thing that people get to these ages and won’t think about doing these things. They’re nearly all hearty and fit, they should be doing more.\'

\'Last year I was passed at an orienteering event by a 60-year-old Norwegian woman. She ran so fast. I’ve even seen 80-year-olds competing. People shouldn’t give up when they get older.’

The Land Rover G4 Challenge, in chilly Herefordshire, has already bought back a few memories for the Japanese student who studied engineering science at Oxford University around thirty years ago. ‘I used to do orienteering in the Lake District and Scotland. I love Britain in this cold weather. It’s like coming home!’See All Event Posts