The Miracle from Chandigarh

Most of us, if we’re lucky, will get the chance to grow old. It's a time for retirement and relaxation, for slowing down and watching the world go by. But that wasn't the case for Man Kaur. In 2009, aged 93, she spontaneously decided to take up running. And then, she took on the world.  

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Most of us, if we're lucky, we'll get to our
nineties and think maybe it's time for a sit down.
Not mar Kore. She'd never been an athlete, but in
two thousand and nine, aged ninety three, she decided to
take up running. Hey, I'm Tony Armstrong. Welcome to the

(00:30):
ballroom where we celebrate the winners, losers and the weird
stuff between. Man Kor might have had a late entry

(00:58):
to athletics, but it was clear from a young age
how driven and spirited she was. Her mother died in
childbirth and she was raised by her grandparents im Patiala
in the northwest of India. They tried to send her
to school, but she wasn't having it. Marn was an entrepreneur.
She earned money weaving drawstrings for pajamas, milling wheat by hand,

(01:20):
and spinning thread. Then in her twenties, she became a
nanny and maid in the Royal Palace, where she served
one of the Maharaja's three hundred and sixty queens before
having three children of her own. One of those three
kids was the son Gerdev Singh. He was a longtime
track and field athlete with more than eighty medals to
his name. As Marn got older, Gerdev urged her to

(01:44):
join him on the track. He said it was mostly
on a whim, but he also wanted to help keep
her fit. What he maybe didn't expect was her drive
to become well a world champion. Gerdev took Marn to
the university track where he trained and asked her to
run four hundred meters. She did slowly but confidently, and

(02:07):
she enjoyed it. They went back a second time and
ran a bit harder and faster. Marn quickly improved, and
her son made a wild suggestion what if she joined
him at his international events. She didn't need to be
asked twice. Marn's late in life athletics career had begun.

(02:30):
She claimed her first hardware in two thousand and seven
at the Chundaga Masters in India, which she said she
did for the heck of it. It was her first
medal of many. Gerdev took on the role of Man's coach,
and mother and son packed their gear to travel the globe,
competing in dozens of Masters athletics events. In twenty sixteen,

(02:53):
at age one hundred, Man ran the one hundred meters
dash at the American Masters Games in Vancouver, finishing in
one minute and twenty seven seconds to take the gold.
The next year, she broke her own world record in
New Zealand. Her competitors, much younger women only in their
seventies and eighties, cheered from the finish line. Marn was
officially the world's fastest centenarian, but running wasn't her only event.

(03:20):
In twenty nineteen in Poland, she won four events in
her age category, the sixty meter sprint, two hundred meters sprint,
shot put and javelin. Just a reminder, she was one
hundred and three years old at the time. Marn was
an inspiration, encouraging other old ladies, as she put it,
to take up running and to make their children part

(03:43):
of the adventure like she had. Marn and Gerdev were
invited to share their achievements with UNI students. It wasn't hard,
she told them, just a simple diet with plenty of
nuts and homegrown soy milk, plus a twenty kilometer run
every morning. Easy. Speaking of Gerdev, it's probably also important

(04:07):
to remember that he was as well as her coach
and a decorated athlete in his eighties. While this was happening,
a casual run around a university track had become a
family tradition. Mancore died in twenty twenty one. She was

(04:28):
one hundred and five years old and for more than
a decade she proved that age was no barrier. They
called her the Miracle from Chundagar and she was. Man calls, drive,
tenacity and fearlessness earned her the Narri Shakti Perrasca Award

(04:48):
for Women's Empowerment, the highest honor for a civilian in
India and a permanent place in the nation's heart. You've
been listening to an iHeart production the pool room with me,
Tony Armstrong. Catch you next time.