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There is a senior counterpart to Lance Armstrong, who overcame testicular cancer to win the Tour de France bicycle championship this year. He is Sid Duckman, 80, who has traveled a long road of medical catastrophe: a 1 1/2-ft. section of his colon was removed in the early '80s because of cancer. A decade later, he underwent 35 radium treatments for prostate cancer. This summer his spleen and left kidney, also cancerous, were taken out.
Duckman, a high jumper, long jumper and javelin thrower, has been slowed down from time to time but never stopped. As a young man growing up in Bayonne, N.J., he could toss a football 65 yds. He briefly hoped for a career in professional baseball, but he didn't perform well under big-time pressure. Instead he worked days in the local General Motors plant, studied for a bachelor's degree at night and became a schoolteacher.
After retiring in 1985 to Daytona Beach, Fla., he focused his attention again on sports, concentrating first on the long jump and the high jump. His arm remained as strong as his legs. "I can still throw a softball 35 yds.," he says. So five years ago, he decided to test his arm with the javelin. "I was terrible," he says. "Accurate, but no length." He trained for jumping at a local high school, but for understandable liability reasons, the school did not offer javelin instruction. So Duckman watched videotapes of the best javelin throwers in the world and slowed the action to study their style. He won a bronze medal in the '95 Games with a toss of 81 ft. 7 in.
The comeback from his most recent surgery has been frustrating. Against his urologist's advice, Duckman began exercising as soon as he could get to the track. "You don't know me," he told the doctor. As it turned out, the doctor did. Duckman was too weak for his presurgical routine. So now he is building up slowly as he gets ready for the October competition. He started with short, quarter-mile walks around his condominium, mixing that routine with both swimming and running in the pool. He can once again pump out 16 push-ups, more than, he notes, young recruits must do when they join the Army. "You can imagine how long it takes an 80-year-old to get into shape," says Duckman. Yes. What is unimaginable would be Duckman's not wanting to.
MIKE FRESHLEY An athlete who needed a hypnotist can now see victory on his own
When he was a high school athlete, Mike Freshley asked a friend's father to hypnotize him before track meets and convince him that he could leap impossible distances. Under the spell, he long-jumped 23 ft. 3 in.--2 ft. better than the school record. At 58, Freshley, now a swimmer, no longer needs a hypnotist. Fully conscious, he can visualize heats in advance and see victory. His imagination is usually on target. In a Masters meet last year, he swam the most demanding race in the sport, the 400-m medley, in 6 min. flat, the best time in his 55-to-59 age group. This year he sees himself setting a record in the Seniors 200-m medley.