And the gold medal goes to...

1. Faster, higher, older.

Much has been made of the age of the stars of the US Men’s Basketball Team at the Paris Olympics, and truly, LeBron James (39) and Kevin Durant (35) are wonders of healthy aging, at least by world class athlete standards. But they are by no means the oldest Olympians in Paris. The oldest athlete traveling to the Olympics will be Australian equestrian star Mary Janna. This will be the 69-year-old’s seventh Olympics, around four months short of her 70th birthday, but she is an alternate and uncertain to participate. Even if she did, it would not be a record, as Arthur von Pongracz of Austria competed at the 1936 Olympic Games at the age of 72.

The oldest athlete set to compete will also be an equestrian: Juan Antonio Jimenez Cobo of Spain, who is 65. Jimenez Cobo will be taking part in his third Olympic Games, having debuted in Sydney in 2000. He took home the silver medal in team dressage in Athens in 2004 but has not been to an Olympics since then.

And it's not just equestrians—there are plenty of other notable older athletes in Paris including Meghan Musnicki, USA, rowing (41); Diana Taurasi, USA, basketball (42); Timo Boll, Germany, table tennis (43); Malindi Elmore, Canada, track and field (44); Nino Salukvadze, Georgia, shooting (55); and a special shoutout to Andy Macdonald of Great Britain, who at 50 years old is competing in skateboarding alongside team members who are 15 and 16 years-old.

And if you think it is unfair to focus on equestrian athletes because the horse does so much of the work (equestrian online mafia, please note that we express no opinion on that subject), it’s worth noting that some of the horses competing are up to 16 years old, making them older then some of the youngest Olympic competitors, even if we do the comparison in human years.

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2. Happy birthday Miss Elizabeth.

We’re a week late, but better late than never: on July 25, the oldest living American, Elizabeth Francis, turned 115. She’s reported to be the fourth oldest person in the world, and the oldest person still living at home, in her case with her daughter (age 95) and granddaughter (age 69) in Houston. Her advice for long life: “speak your mind and don’t hold your tongue” which means that there will be likely some very long-lived people around TNSB headquarters.

And a special TNSB tip of the cap to Ethel Harrison, Francis’ granddaughter, who is the principal caregiver to both her mother and her grandmother. Two slices of the birthday cake for her.

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3. Cybercrime: Everybody's doin' it.

Elder financial fraud has long been a problem in the US and elsewhere, but cybercrimes are driving up losses for people over 60. The FBI recently reported that cybercrimes targeting older Americans increased 13% in 2023, with losses rising 11% to $3.4 billion. More than 101,000 victims aged 60 and over reported this kind of crime to the FBI in 2023, though it is widely assumed that this number is substantially underreported. Scammers are believed to target older people because of the perceived lack of sophistication on cybercrimes and because, to paraphrase John Dillinger, that’s where the money is.

Tech support scams and investment scams were the most widely reported types of fraud, and many frauds involved cryptocurrency in one form or another. For a detailed blow-by-blow report on how a sophisticated scheme can work on one retiree, read Tara Siegel Bernard’s report from earlier this week in the NY Times.