As preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympics begin, find out who are this year’s youngest and oldest Olympians, and other details about the athletes
The highly anticipated Paris 2024 Olympic Games will begin this Friday, July 26, 2024 at the Stade de France.
Paris 2024 Olympics Games youngest and oldest athletes list and age of players
The upcoming competition will feature top athletes from across the world taking part in all kinds of sporting events.
Paris 2024 Olympic Games youngest athlete
This year, Chinese skateboarder Zheng Haohao is all set to feature as the competition’s youngest athlete. Zheng will be one of the youngest participants in Olympic history at just 11 years old. She is China’s youngest Olympian and secured her spot to compete in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Skating during a pre-Olympic qualifier in Shanghai and Budapest.
If Haohao manages to win, she will become the youngest champion at a summer Olympics in history. USA’s Marjorie Gestring, who won gold in springboard jumping currently holds the record. She won the medal aged just 13 years and 268 days during the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.
- Zheng Haohao, China skateboarding: 11 years old
- Fay De Fazio Ebert, Canada skateboarding: 14 years old
- Sky Brown, Great Britain skateboarding: 15 years old
- Hezly Rivera, Team USA gymnastics: 16 years old
- Quincy Wilson, Team USA track and field: 16 years old
- Lola Tambling, Great Britain skateboarding: 16 years old
- Dominika Banevič (B-Girl Nicka), Lithuania breaking: 17 years old
- Aubrey Kim, Team USA Paralympics swimming athlete alternate: 17 years old
- Minna Stess, Team USA skateboarding: 17 years old
- Alex Shackell, Team USA swimming: 17 years old
- Phoebe Gill, Great Britain track and field: 17 years old
- Summer McIntosh, Canada swimming: 17 years old
- Thomas Heilman, Team USA swimming: 17 years old
- Eva Okaro, Great Britain swimming: 17 years old
- Baptiste Addis, French recurve archery: 17 years old
Paris 2024 Olympic Games oldest athlete
Meanwhile, Australian equestrian Mary Hanna is all set to compete as the oldest competitor in the upcoming Olympics. Hanna first took part in an Olympic event at Atlanta 1996. She will turn 70 years old this December, and she is the oldest athlete taking part in the Paris Games. Behind her are fellow rivals in the equestrian event – 61-year-old Jill Irving, and 59-year-old Mario Deslauriers. Both athletes will represent Canada as a pair.
Hanna will serve as an emergency reserve for Team Australia during the dressage event. As such, she may not get to compete but will get a call on if any other members of the team (Jayden Brown, William Matthew and Simone Pearce) suffer an injury. During the Rio 2016 Olympics, she became the oldest Australian athlete ever to compete at the Olympics aged 61. She beat the previous record held by Bill Roycroft by just a few months.
As of now, Great Britain’s John Copley currently holds the record of being the oldest Olympian. He took part in the 1948 Games in Art, Mixed Painting, Engravings, and Etchings and won the silver medal aged 73.
- Meghan Musnicki, Team USA rowing: 41 years old
- Diana Taurasi, Team USA women’s basketball: 42 years old
- Timo Boll, German table tennis: 43 years old
- Malindi Elmore, Canada track and field: 44 years old
- Andy Macdonald, Great Britain skateboarding: 50 years old
- Nino Salukvadze, Georgia shooting: 55 years old
- Carl Hester, Great Britain equestrianism: 57 years old
- Mario Deslauriers, Canada equestrianism: 59 years old
- Jill Irving, Canada equestrianism: 61 years old
- Mary Hanna, Australia equestrianism traveling reserve: 69 years old
Oldest medal winner in Olympic history
Sweden’s Oscar Swahn holds the record for being the oldest athlete to win a gold medal. He represented Sweden across three Games – London 1908, Stockholm 1912 and Antwerp 1920, alongside his son Alfred. Back in the 1912 Games, he was a part of the team that won gold in the Men’s 100 meter team running deer, single shots event. Swahn was 64 years and 258 days when he won, and remains the oldest gold medalist in Olympic history.
Just eight years later in Antwerp, Swahn and his son were part of the Swedish team that finished second in the same event. He thus became the oldest silver medalist at an Olympic Games aged 72 years and 281 days old, excluding the now-defunct art competition.