Ian Millar Will Not Be the Oldest Athlete at the 2008 Olympics

Canada’s most frequent Olympian, and the man set to equal the world record for Olympic appearances if he should be selected to Canada’s 2008 Olympic show jumping squad, will not be the oldest athlete at the Games. Millar was the oldest athlete at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens when he was 57.

Now 61, Millar will be upstaged for the age record in the Beijing Olympics by a Japanese dressage rider. Hiroshi Hoketsu, now 66, has been named to Japan’s dressage team. He will be 67 by the time the Games begin.

Although Hoketsu is poised to set an age record for this year’s Games, he will not set any overall Olympic age records. The oldest athlete of all time is 72-year-old Oscar Swahn, a shooter from Sweden who competed in 1920.

Unlike Millar, Hoketsu’s Olympic record includes only one prior Games. He last competed in the Olympics 44 years ago. Those Games, in 1964, were in his home country.

Millar has competed in every Olympic Games in which Canada has fielded a team or an individual in show jumping since 1972. Canada’s 2008 show jumping team will not be named until spring, but Millar is a front-runner. “Being the oldest is not a record I really wanted to hold”, Millar quipped, but added, “it would be an honour to equal the world record of nine Games, if I am selected.” Austrian sailor Hubert Raudaschl currently holds that record. Millar has been Canada’s most frequent Olympian since his seventh start in 2000.