Senior Olympics Going to St. Louis

The City of St. Louis will play host to the first National Senior Olympic games tentatively scheduled for 1987, Gov. John Ashcroft announced.

The National Senior Olympics, which are not affiliated with the U.S. Olympic Committee or the International Olympic Committee, would be held June 27 through July 2. Those dates would stage the games immediately prior to the start of the city’s annual Veiled Prophet Fair, which is one of the state’s major summer tourist events.

Regional Senior Olympics representatives have planned a fall meeting in St. Louis to outline plans for the event, such as the role of regional competitions in qualifying athletes for the national games.

Ashcroft noted regional Senior Olympics competitions had begun 15 years ago and now were held in about 50 locations throughout the nation.

At the St. Louis games, an estimated 4,000 athletes from the United States and Canada would participate in separate age divisions for sports including track and field, swimming, bicycling, bowling, golf, table tennis, horsehoes and tennis, Ashcroft said.

Some of the events probably will take place at Washington University, which was the site of events for the 1904 Olympic Games, he added.