Scientists Stumped by 'Incredibly Rare' Sprinter as Three World Records Broken

A sprinter from Italy was approached by a team of researchers after she 'defied the laws of ageing' with her record-breaking achievements.

Emma Maria Mazzenga, from Padua, has three world records to her name, including the indoor 200m world record for women over 90, after she recorded a time of 51.08 at the Regional Open Indoor Masters Meet in 2024.

A few weeks later, at the European Masters Athletics championships in Poland, the 92-year-old broke two more world records for women over 90 – the 60m dash in 13.91, and the 400m in 2:06.34.

Then, back in June last year, she smashed her previous 200m world record for women over 90 by recording a time of 50.33 at the Regional Masters Championships.

Such was the scale of her efforts, Mazzenga was asked by a team of researchers to be a test subject.

Chris Sundberg, a co-lead of the study, spoke to Runner's World about Mazzenga and her remarkable achievements.

“Just finding someone that is healthy enough to be able to do a lot of these evaluations in their 90s is incredibly rare and hard to find to begin with,” he said.

“We’ve spent the last year trying to find other people in their 90s that are healthy enough to come in and to do these evaluations, and so far we’ve been unsuccessful.”

Mazzenga travelled to a lab at the University of Pavia for a full day of experiments, which included knee exercises that measured fatigue, force, and power. What they found was nothing short of remarkable.

After researchers biopsied a small piece of muscle from her quad muscle for molecular analysis, the results showed that Mazzenga’s mitochondrial function is equivalent to healthy young women in their twenties.

In theory, mitochondrial function should become impaired as we get older, but the 92-year-old is seemingly defying those expectations.

Sundberg suggests Mazzenga’s genetics and lifestyle, as well as her consistent sprinting, make it so her mitochondria are still thriving.

Marta Colosio, the first author of Mazzenga’s case study, says the chance to study an "exceptional" athlete like Mazzenga was "a unique opportunity to better understand how lifelong training influences the neuromuscular and cardiovascular systems during aging."

You can read more on Mazzenga’s remarkable story here.