experiencelifemag.com Print › | Back › Gil Bovard, 80 Multi-sport athlete, Clear Lake, Iowa By Sheila Mulrooney Eldred July-August 2008 Bovard’s athletic résumé reads like a teenager’s: hockey, rugby, rowing, swimming, kayaking, scuba diving, sailing and cross-country skiing. He’s completed three Birkebeiner ski races, is training for the Old Boys’ Rugby World Championships in Scotland later this year, and swam in the U.S. National masters swim meet with his three sons in 1999 — the most fun he’s had as an athlete, he says. (One of those sons is 55-year-old Ralph Bovard.) These days, a typical week includes a daily swimming session at the gym, an early-morning sculling or kayak workout in the summer, and Sunday night hockey (he plays goalie). Team sports keep him going. “That’s where you come together and do things as a unit,” he says. “There’s fun in winning, and a lot of things to learn from losing.” His advice on getting older: “Don’t even think about it.”

Gil Bovard, 80

Multi-sport athlete, Clear Lake, Iowa

Bovard’s athletic résumé reads like a teenager’s: hockey, rugby, rowing, swimming, kayaking, scuba diving, sailing and cross-country skiing. He’s completed three Birkebeiner ski races, is training for the Old Boys’ Rugby World Championships in Scotland later this year, and swam in the U.S. National masters swim meet with his three sons in 1999 — the most fun he’s had as an athlete, he says. (One of those sons is 55-year-old Ralph Bovard.)

These days, a typical week includes a daily swimming session at the gym, an early-morning sculling or kayak workout in the summer, and Sunday night hockey (he plays goalie).

Team sports keep him going. “That’s where you come together and do things as a unit,” he says. “There’s fun in winning, and a lot of things to learn from losing.”

His advice on getting older: “Don’t even think about it.”

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