She Goes to the Mat With Old Age, Belts It in the Chops

--Lucille Jeffrey Thompson is known as “Killer” to friends, on and off the karate mats. She’s also one of the oldest people to earn a black belt in the martial arts sport and, with her 90th birthday coming up on Sunday, she’s “just sorry I didn’t learn about it until I was 88.” Thompson earned her black belt in Korean karate, or tae kwon do, last weekend at Han’s Academy in Danville, Ill., before a group of fellow students and other well-wishers. She got her nickname while taking some tests with other students. They held up a one-inch-thick board for her to break; she asked for a two-inch board and broke it instead. “Everybody started calling me ‘Killer,’ ” she recalled. Thompson said she turned to karate for exercise because of a sore shoulder. “I saw old people shuffling along, all bent over with too many aches and pains,” she said. “I decided I wouldn’t let old age get me down. Also,” she added, “never quit trying.”

--Bicyclist David Steed proved that the best way to get where you want to go sometimes is to stay exactly where you are. The object: to regain a title in the Guinness Book of World Records by balancing atop a stationary two-wheeled bicycle long enough to break the 1982 record of 10 hours. The billing: “The World’s Most Boring Sporting Event.” Steed, 27, stayed in the saddle for 24 hours. Yes, there was pain--a stiff neck and swollen arms and legs. But the joy of victory overwhelmed all aches, he said after achieving his goal at the 27th International Cycle Show in New York. Steed, a native of Tucson, said he developed the skill while waiting for red lights, learning to balance rather than take his feet out of the pedal straps. How does one train for the event? “Basically, I don’t train at all,” Steed said. “This is just on the fringe of athletics.” As for the bicycle he used, Steed said: “I’m either going to sell it as a used bike with very, very low mileage or save it to show it to my grandkids.”

--Smokers wanting to quit can join a Caribbean cruise with Dr. Hans-Albert Courtial, together with the West German Treatment Center for Natural-Biological Healing. The Stella Solaris slips its moorings April 19 at Naples and the two-day acupuncture treatment is included in the fare of 4,000 marks ($1,785). Smokers will be treated by puncturing the ear with needles to reach the “addiction center in the central nervous system,” said Dr. Florian Heiss, chairman of the Hamburg center. “At the end of the treatment the smoker “will feel relaxed and positive, even though he might have lost his best friend,” Heiss said.