Who are the oldest and youngest track and field athletes to win Olympic medals? Colin Townsend
The oldest Olympic athletics gold medallist is Pat McDonald, the Irish-born American policeman who won the 56-pound-weight throw in Antwerp in 1920 aged 42; he'd won the shot put in the previous Games, in Stockholm in 1912. And the oldest athletics medallist of all remains Britain's Terence "Tebbs" Lloyd Johnson, a venerable 48 when he took bronze in the 50km walk in the 1948 London Olympics.
The oldest female medalists are of rather more recent vintage. Ellina Zvereva, from Belarus, was 39 when she won the discus at Sydney in 2000; at the same Games 40-year-old Merlene Ottey took bronze in the 100m.
The youngest athletics medallist - gold or otherwise - is Barbara Jones, who was only 15 when she was part of the American team which won the sprint relay in Helsinki in 1952. The youngest in an individual event is West Germany's Ulrike Meyfarth, who was 16 when she won the high jump in Munich in 1972. The youngest male gold medallist is Bob Mathias, 17 when he won the decathlon in London in 1948.