VAN NUYS : Older Athletes Compete in Gymnast Event

Thanks to a few bottles of aspirin, the thrill of victory didn’t feel quite so much like the agony of defeat to participants in the Senior Olympics gymnastics competition on Sunday.

“It’s hard on the body,” admitted Bob Hammond, 60, a wrestling coach at Chatsworth High School. “You have a lot more aches and pains after you get older.”

Hammond was one of more than two dozen athletes from the age of 20 to 67--people older than 20 are seniors in gymnastics, organizers said--who took part in the competition at Valley College in Van Nuys.

But, quipped Hammond, who took part in the rope-climbing contest, “it still gives you a lift, pardon the pun.”

Nearly a dozen other events--from the pommel horse to the parallel bars to the vault--lured participants from as far north as Portland, Ore. Most of them were in their 30s and 40s, competing against those within five years of age.

Some, like Hammond--who won the 1955 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. rope-climbing championship--come to compete in events that garnered them medals in their youth.

Sanford Werner, 62, of Canoga Park, tied the world record for rope climbing in 1951. “The Olympics gives them an opportunity to continue in their sport,” said Gary Honjio, the event coordinator. “There is no organized opportunity for them once they leave college.”

The Los Angeles-area senior Olympic competition--which is not affiliated with the Olympic Games--was founded 24 years ago by Warren Blaney of Los Angeles. Other such competitions are held throughout the United States.

“We’ve had people from all over the country at one time or another,” Honjio said of the Van Nuys competition. “It’s becoming more popular.”

For some, it was a triumph just to compete.

A determined Laurie Delanty of Portland, Ore., competed with a cast on one foot from a sprained ankle. She’d tossed away her crutches before boarding the plane.

“I was a gymnast many, many moons ago,” said Delanty, 32. “I kind of hit that big 3-0 and decided I wanted to do some things I was interested in. I would like to be able to get back on a competitive level.”

She reached that level even with the cast, hobbling away with gold medals in the uneven parallel bars and rope climbing and a bronze in the balance beams.

Hammond was edged out by Werner by a half-second in the rope climb. But second place, he said, was pretty darn good.

“It’s kind of an affirmation that you can still cut it,” Hammond said. “And it’s the only thing I can do (that) my wrestlers can’t do better.”