Dave Ortman’s Serbian sojourn: IX Olympiad for the Third Age
Dave continued:
The U.S. team flew to Belgrade a few days early to get acclimated and see the city sights. They were then bused about three hours south to a spa-resort area in Vrnjacka Banja, which hosted over 200 teams (over 1,200 participants total).
While there were teams of Swedes and Germans who were living in Serbia, the U.S. team was the only team competing from outside the country. The Olympiad’s focus is on promoting sports, health and culture for person over 60 years of age and is being supported by the U.S. Embassy in Serbia. Regarding Sports, considering the number of teams, the Olympiad events were well-organized and did provide for some flexibility to allow us to complete in the basketball competition, after a late arrival.
The U.S. Team competed in the following events: Racewalking, Chess, Darts (including an exhibition international dart competition vs. Team Serbia in front of the entire assembly); Air Rifle; Soccer Kicking; Basketball Free Throws and Fishing (a nonscoring event).
For a view of the Racewalking relay (approximately 4x80m) US Team with David anchoring and placing 16th out of 121 teams, see:
The U.S. team finished with an overall ranking of 28th place out of 208 teams.
The rest of the team consisted of David’s Aunt Harriet Kaufman (Freeman, South Dakota), Ted Hunter and Jim Hoath from Seattle and Alexsandre Gogic from San Diego.
The X Olympiad for the Third Age next year promises to be bigger and better. If anyone is interested in more details contact (me) at deortman@msn.com.
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