Dave Ortman’s Serbian sojourn: IX Olympiad for the Third Age

U.S. team certificate

U.S. team certificate

My masters at Nemean Games post prompted our Seattle multi-eventer friend Dave Ortman to share his own recent European adventures — in Serbia. Dave, 63, was part of a five person 60+ U.S. team in the IX Olympiad of Sport, Health, and Culture for the Third Age in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. The event was Sept. 30 – Oct. 4. Dave writes: “They were invited by Djordje Maricic, a Serbian who graduated from Bethel College (Kansas) in 2007. He returned to Belgrade and is a deputy of the board president of the Olympiad. While at Bethel, Mr. Maricic became acquainted with a number of (my) relatives in my hometown of Freeman, South Dakota. As a Bethel College graduate (1975) who set several school relay and hurdle records and is a member of the Bethel College Athletic Hall of Fame, (I) agreed to serve as team captain for the U.S. team.â€

Dave (with shirt) and fellow members of the U.S. team at Serbian event.

Dave (with shirt) and fellow members of the U.S. team at Serbian event.

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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October 13, 2016

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