Too late to begin?

Sampras87 · March 17, 2009, 1:06pm

Steve Peters
[i]The sense of ordinariness disappears once you ask him to take you through his modest, belated athletic career. He ran from 13 to 15 but it wasn’t like he was the next Roger Black. He stopped after two years and didn’t return for 10 years. Even then, it was twice-weekly training sessions and low-key competition at the weekend. It was fun, nothing more.

At 40, Peters thought to hang up his spikes. Someone told him about the masters circuit. “I changed my mind about retiring and for the first time in my life decided to take athletics seriously. I started weights, I went to the gym, which I had never done, I did speed endurance sessions. It was bizarre: my times just kept dropping until I was 44 and hit 10.9s for the 100m. From nowhere, I was third in the East of England rankings and someone wrote about an up-and-coming athlete, young Stephen Peters. I got a letter inviting me to join this Olympic training camp. I wrote back and said, ‘Actually, I’m an old man, I’m not up- and-coming at all, I’m 44’. But I was loving it, really enjoying seeing my times drop.”

At the age of 46 he ran 22.21s for the 200m; he became masters 200m world champion at 50, running 22.5s. “At the time I was beginning my work with elite athletes and I would look at myself, thinking, ‘You can’t go out there in a world of elite sport with this random approach to your own training’. I structured my training, I worked on my mental skills and realised I had exactly the same concerns as the athletes I was working with — anxieties, feeling pressure, insecurities, that feeling of things getting out of control.”

Peters learnt to train his mind, which was the right starting point for the exercise that would dominate the rest of his life. He returned to the track last week, early preparation for his 2009 season, and ran 11.7s for 100m. As his fitness improves, he hopes to get that time down to 11.4s or 11.3s. He is 55 years of age.
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http://masterstrack.com/blog/001592.html

So,this man is definitively a champion!
Thanx for posting it