Her secret, if she has one, is neither a miracle supplement nor a hidden training formula. It is consistency, joy and the refusal to surrender to stillness.
The 92-year-old wonder with muscle cells of sprinters in their 20s
By Olivier Acuña Barba • Published: 24 Aug 2025 •
Emma Maria Mazzenga has the world wondering how she does it, and scientists studying her muscles, nerves, and mitochondria, the cell powerhouse, to gain a better understanding of how she’s able to keep running at 92 and beating her own records.
She’s simply amazing. Emma dislocated her shoulder during a race in Germany a dozen years ago because she threw herself ahead of a competitor to win the race. “The woman next to me was about to overtake me,” Mazzenga said. She was 79 at the time. “Now, Mazzenga, who lives in Padua, Italy, is running out of competition,” wrote the Washington Post in a special report about her. “At 5-foot-1, she’s an elite sprinter with four age-group world records to her name — and very few opponents to race against.” Last year, Mazzenga broke the outdoor 200-metre world record for women over 90 with a time of 51.47 seconds. A month later, she broke her own record by a second.
The US influential news outlet said that Mazzenga seems to possess cardiorespiratory fitness of someone in their 50s, and her muscle mitochondria function as well as a healthy 20-year-old, researchers studying her have said. Marta Colosio, a postdoctoral fellow at Marquette University and the first author of the case study, told the Washington Post she has not found another 90-year-old who can compare to Mazzenga. “She’s ageing, but she can do things that at 91, people can’t do.”
Mazzenga said “all hell broke loose” when the elderly sprinter broke the indoor 200-metre world record for her age group last January with a time of 54.47. “I ended up in the newspapers, something which had never happened before.” Scientists reached out to her, asking to study her. In the lab, researchers used a needle to collect a piece of muscle the size of a pencil eraser from Mazzenga’s quadriceps, recalled Chris Sundberg, a co-lead of the study on Mazzenga and the director of the Integrative Muscle Physiology and Energetics Laboratory at Marquette University. Under a microscope, Mazzenga’s muscle proved to be a mosaic of both the expected and extraordinary. Her fast-twitch muscle fibres, which are associated with speed, resembled those of a healthy 70-year-old. The truly fantastic thing came next. Mazzenga’s slow-twitch muscle fibres, which are associated with endurance activities, looked like those of a 20-year-old, as did the blood flow and nerve pathways to her muscles.
Mazzenga’s advice for other older athletes: Know your limits. Meet with your doctor first to ensure you are fit to run. Then, stay consistent and run multiple times a week. By studying elite older athletes, researchers can learn more about what’s possible as we age, said Sundberg.
https://leadership.ng/92-year-old-sprinters-muscles-baffle-scientists-esemble-those-in-their-20s/
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