When she takes part in the 2022 Beijing Games [1], German speed skater Claudia Pechstein, 49, will be the oldest woman ever to compete at a Winter Olympics, NBC Sports reports [2]. She turns 50 on February 22, just two days after the closing ceremony. She is also the second person — and only woman — to compete in eight Winter Olympics. She will tie Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai [3], who, until Pechstein officially races in Beijing, is the only athlete to rack up eight Winter Olympic appearances (Albertville 1992 through PyeongChang 2018).
Pechstein qualified for the mass start [4] event in speed skating [5] (or long-track speed skating). Throughout her Olympic career, beginning with the 1992 Albertville Games, she's won five gold medals and nine medals total, most of which were in the 3,000- and 5,000-meter events.
Pechstein was barred from competing for two years in 2009 due to "irregularly high blood values," according to her Olympic profile [7]. Those levels, The New York Times reports [8], could have indicated that she took EPO to boost endurance or had a banned blood transfusion. The International Skating Union found the levels to be indicative of doping. She missed the 2010 Vancouver Olympics as a result of the ban and denies to this day having ever used performance-enhancing drugs.
According to the Associated Press [9], Pechstein, who's called herself "grandma" in the past, says of her record-breaking Olympic appearance, "It's for me more than the gold." On the men's side, the oldest man to compete at a Winter Games was reportedly Swedish curler Carl August Kronlund [10]. He claimed silver at the 1924 Olympics when he was 58 years old and passed away in 1937.
To learn more about the US Olympic hopefuls, visit TeamUSA.org [11]. Watch the Winter Olympics beginning Feb. 3 on NBC.