World’s Oldest Person to Carry Olympic Torch

Many world records have been set and broken since the Olympic Game’s modern inception in 1896. Now, in 2021, another Olympic record is set to be broken. This time around it’s a 118-year-old woman, the world’s oldest living person, who’s breaking records as the oldest Olympic torchbearer.

CNN reported that a Japanese woman, Kane Tanaka, “will take the flame as it passes through Shime, in her home prefecture of Fukuoka.”

For most of the 100-meter (about 328 feet) or so trek, Tanaka will be pushed in a wheelchair by her family. However, the supercentenarian who’s a person past 110 years of age, ”is determined to walk the final few steps, as she passes the torch to the next runner,” CNNsaid. And, for the event, she’ll wear a new pair of sneakers, “a gift from her family on her birthday in January.

Eiji Tanaka, her grandson who’s in his 60s, said:

It’s great she reached that age and she can still keep up an active lifestyle. We want other people to see that and feel inspired, and not to think age is a barrier.

Tanaka was born in 1903. This was the same year the Wright brothers successfully completed the world’s first powered flight. She married a rice shop owner at 19 years old, had four children, and worked in the family store until she was 103.

She’s the grandmother to five, great-grandmother to eight, is twice a cancer survivor, and lived through the 1918 Spanish flu and two world wars. However, her grandson Eiji told CNN: “I don’t remember her talking much about the past … She’s very forward thinking — she really enjoys living in the present.”

It was noted that in 1964 when the Olympic games were last held in Tokyo, Tanaka was 61 years old, and “counting both the summer and winter editions of the games, this year’s Olympics will be the 49th of her lifetime.”

What is her life like at age 118, and what keeps her sharp and healthy

Tanaka, who now lives in a nursing home, typically wakes at 6 a.m., and “enjoys playing the strategic board game, Othello,” — she’s also a fan of fizzy drinks.

COVID-19 visitation restrictions have prevented her family from visiting for 18 months, but they told CNN that “staying curious and doing math are her secrets to keeping the mind sharp and body healthy.”

According to CNN, Tanaka is just one of the more than 80,000 centenarians recorded by Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry last year.