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VIDEO: 100-Year-Old Man Finishes Toronto Marathon

<p>Fauja Singh, 100, celebrates at the finish line after completing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in Toronto on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011.</p>
Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon
/
AP

Fauja Singh, 100, celebrates at the finish line after completing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in Toronto on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011.

Talk about a really amazing race:

"Fauja Singh, 100, finished Toronto's waterfront marathon Sunday evening, securing his place in Guinness World Records as the oldest person — and the first centenarian — to ever accomplish a run of that distance," CBC News reports.

Singh, a British citizen born in India, crossed the line in just over 8 hours, 11 minutes — and, officially at least, wasn't the last finisher. Four people, who it appears were in a group accompanying Singh, were 1 to 10 seconds behind him according to the electronic chips they carried to record their times.

From Toronto, Dan Karpenchuk reports for NPR that:

"Singh, who speaks only Punjabi, said through his coach and interpreter that he was overjoyed and achieved a lifelong wish. He aims to raise money for local charities, including a children's foundation that provides basic needs. His coach said part of his secret is that eats a diet of mainly tea, toast and curry. His training is to run about 10 miles a day.

"He only took up running twenty years ago at the age of 80."

According to the CBC, Singh — known as the "Turbaned Tornado" — beat his goal of finishing in 9 hours.

There's video here of what it was like at the finish line as Singh came across (note at 4:15 p.m. ET, we've replaced the earlier video with one that's a bit shorter).

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott
Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.