Age Is No Obstacle for Gymnasts

“The Star-Spangled Banner” came out of a boom box, the American flag hung tiny and obscure from an exposed pipe and the most foreign accent was from “New Yawk.”

But the athletes gathered in the steamy gym of Los Angeles Valley College were champions nonetheless Sunday as they vied in the 1990 Senior Olympic Gymnastics Meet.

The word senior was actually something of a misnomer. Most of the 44 contenders in the 20th annual meet appeared to be thirtysomething--old in the limber world of gymnastics--and with enviable muscle tone. Indeed, the scene might have made a good ad for liposuction if not for the fact that these bodies were made in the gym, not on the operating table.

But to older athletes such as Eugene Greenstadt, 58, of Encino the competition was seen not as a challenge against friends so much as against Newton’s laws.

“It’s just essential to feel control over my weight and my body, and that gravity isn’t winning,” said Greenstadt, a slim, retired physicist who climbs ropes and runs marathons. “Gravity is a hard adversary.”

Mainly, the yearly event is “a fun kind of thing” for former high school and college gymnasts, many of whom still work out together at Valley College on Tuesday and Friday nights, said organizer Gary Honjio, chairman of the college’s physical education department. The athletes, separated into categories by age group, competed for medals Sunday in rope-climbing, rings, floor routines and parallel bars.

For some reason, rope-climbing drew the oldest and most distinguished athletes--including an honored spectator, retired Rear Adm. Raymond Bass. The 80-year-old Bass, who won the gold medal in rope-climbing in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, the last year rope-climbing was an Olympic event, bestowed the medals on Sunday.

One woman competed in the grueling climb up the 20-foot rope--photographer Bonnie Burrow, 39, of Burbank.

The top rope-climber--with the best time for any age group at 4.23 seconds--was a 57-year-old Topanga resident who teaches physics and coaches wrestling at Chatsworth High School.

“I concentrate on buoyancy and speed, mainly just speed,” said champion Bob Hammond, who hoisted his lean, 6-foot, 160-pound frame up the rope in swift, even strokes.

Hammond was the National Collegiate Assn. champion in rope-climbing in 1955 when he was on the UCLA gymnastics team. The runner-up then, Paul Paley, an old friend and UCLA classmate of Hammond’s, competed against him Sunday and finished close behind him once again at 5.7 seconds.

“I went to Fairfax, and he went to Roosevelt,” Paley said of their high school alma maters. “So that’s part of it. We get together here and go out to dinner afterward.”

Others in their group of silver-haired climbers were Duane Patterson, 54, of Monrovia, who finished in 5.5 seconds; Greenstadt, at 9.5 seconds, and Sanford Werner, 59, of Canoga Park, with 4.4 seconds.

Werner was an Amateur Athletic Union champion and tied the world rope-climbing record in 1951 with an official time of 3.1 seconds. The grandfather-to-be said he really broke the world record at 2.9 seconds, but the time was disqualified after the rope he used was belatedly measured and found to be a half-inch short.

Hammond’s toughest competition included a 36-year-old New Yorker, Victor Randazzo, who’s been visiting his brother Bart in North Hollywood. Randazzo ascended the rope gracefully and effortlessly Sunday, after avoiding the sport for 20 years, and pulled in a time of around 4.4 seconds, good enough to win in his age group.

Hammond patted him admiringly on the shoulder and Randazzo returned the compliment. “I think they’re fantastic,” Randazzo said of his competitors.