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In 1999 when Charlie Urstadt dove into Westport YMCA pool for his first swim meet in more than four decades, he might have turned some heads with his easy win ”“ save for one small detail.
“These guys are so old,” Urstadt chuckled, “that they can”™t turn their heads.”
Welcome to the world of masters swimming ”“ and to the reigning world champion of octogenarians in the 50-meter breaststroke.
A half-century after making All-American with the Dartmouth College swim team, Urstadt was back on the medal stand last April after winning the 50-meter breaststroke in the 80-to-84 age bracket at the FINA World Masters Championship in Perth, Australia. He was one of just four Americans to win an event at the weeklong event.
Not bad for someone who doesn”™t even own a pool.
It is not that Urstadt lacks space for a swimming hole in the backyard of his Bronxville, N.Y., home. And he certainly does not lack the means, as chairman of Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc., a real-estate investment trust based in Greenwich.
Perhaps it was more the result of his having let the sport pass him by after meeting his match. He was drafted from within the ranks of the U.S. Navy to make a swim at the U.S. Olympic team in water polo in the mid-1950”™s while still serving.
“I lasted about a month,” Urstadt recalled. “All these young kids were swimming circles around me.”
From an early age, Urstadt was the one doing laps on all the other kids. Entering his first competitive meet at the age of 12, he would go on to win the Public Schools Athletic League championship in New York City, swimming for the Bronx High School of Science team.
At Dartmouth, Urstadt captained a strong team that was nevertheless a perennial Ivy League also-ran to Yale University. Urstadt still recalls one meet at Yale in which he held the lead after six turns with two to go, but was unable to hold off the guys on either side and finished third. The runner-up was Jim “Doc” Counsilman, who coached the U.S. men”™s Olympic teams in 1964 and 1976 and who in 1979 became the oldest man to swim the English Channel. The winner that day, Urstadt recollects, was one Charles Keating who would become a central figure in the savings and loan scandal of the early 1990s.
At that point, Urstadt had long since drifted away from the sport, taking up golf, running, paddle tennis, trapshooting and particularly sailing.
Over the years, he kept a toe in the water, however, including open-water swims in the cold waters of Long Island Sound. On such a distance swim one day, he and his swimming partner encountered a warm spot. When asked by a boater accompanying them on why the hold up, Urstadt responded they were staying put for a bit to warm up.
“You dope,” was the reply. “You”™re at the end of the New Rochelle sewer.”
Perhaps it was a fountain of youth. Urstadt did more than win his re-entry to competitive swimming that day in Westport ”“ he would go on to win the world championship in the breaststroke in Munich later that year in an 70- to 75-year age bracket.
A typical training day for Urstadt is between 1,200 and 1,500 yards. At the training table, however, it is anything goes: Ice cream is his favorite.
He does not need to worry about a world championship until the spring of 2010, when the competition will be held in Sweden. His next meet is right around the corner, however, scheduled for this month at a regional competition at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., for swimmers from Maine to Virginia in the Colonies division of United States Masters Swimming.
In the world of masters swimming, one must always be mindful of fresh “youngsters” coming abreast, who have likewise bathed in the fountain of youth ”“ and more recently.
“As you get older, you get slower ”“ no matter how much you train,” Urstadt said. “I am worried about these young kids coming in.”
