THE OLDEST PERSON TO…
Following the daredevil exploits of Verdun Hayes who is now the world’s oldest skydiver at the age of 101, SADIE NICHOLAS salutes the achievements of other…
On July 12, 2015, great-greatgrandmother Doris Cicely Long abseiled 94 metres down the side of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth aged 101 years and 55 days. In doing so, she broke her own world record as the oldest person to abseil, which she had set 14 months earlier on her 100th birthday in May 2014.
Once back on the ground Doris said of her newest record: “It was very hard work, much harder than last year. It was so windy I swung about a bit but I enjoyed it. I feel it’s well worth it.
“My legs ache like anything and my right arm where I hold the rope and my hair is all sticking out.”
Nicknamed Daring Doris, she will be 103 this Thursday and took up abseiling when she was a spring chicken of 85. Doris has raised about £10,000 for a Hampshire hospice from her hobby and has been awarded the MBE for her charity work. The oldest female to complete a marathon was American Gladys Burrill who crossed the finishing line of the Honolulu marathon in Hawaii on December 12, 2010, at the age of 92 years and 19 days.
Known as The Gladyator, she was born in November 1918 and completed the race in 9 hours, 53 minutes and 16 seconds. She retired from marathons shortly afterwards to concentrate on 10km runs. UPS AND DOWNS: Doris Long, left, and Verdun Hayes, above. Jack Reynolds rides the roller coaster, far left, and Johanna Quaas on the parallel bars, below achievement. Erwin, from Long Island in New York, had been granted his Padi diving certificate in 1989 when he was 68 and has been diving off the Turks and Caicos islands since 1997. Last month on his 105th birthday Jack Reynolds became the oldest person to ride a roller coaster, 80 years after he last went on one. Jack, from Chesterfield in Derbyshire, celebrated his big day on the Twistosaurus attraction at North Yorkshire’s Flamingo Land before being presented with his official framed Guinness World Record certificate. He credits a drop of whisky in the morning with keeping him healthy and had already made headlines last year when – aged 104 – he became the oldest person to get a tattoo.