Kansas City-area athlete, age 90, competes in 4 events over 6 days in Iowa
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- Alan Poisner, age 90, won four medals and set two records at 2025 Senior Games.
- Poisner finished ahead of runners in both road races by walking the full events.
- National Senior Games will replace racewalking with power walking starting in 2027.
One of Kansas City’s preeminent racewalkers recently competed in four events over six days.
Alan Poisner, 90, who has won national and international awards and set records in several age divisions in National Senior Games, garnered a unique group of awards at the recently concluded and biannual National Senior Games in Iowa.
Over 12,000 athletes from 50 states attended the event — which took place in Des Moines and Ames — by qualifying in their home states.
From July 24 through July 29, Poisner, who lives in Overland Park, won gold medals in the 1,500-meter and 5K racewalks in Ames in the 90-94 age division, setting all-time records in both distances. He also holds the record times in the age 85-89 and age 80-84 divisions. During the same six-day period, Poisner also entered road races in Des Moines that were open to runners who had qualified by competing against other runners. Alan had qualified in the road race in Kansas by taking home a medal in the Kansas Senior Games walk events at Topeka. In Des Moines, he was the only person ewho walked both road races. In the 5K (90-94 division) he came in ahead of two runners. He earned the silver medal with a finishing time of 40 minutes, 05 seconds — the third-fastest time in nearly 40 years of these competitions for runners. The next day, he won a gold medal in the 1-mile road race, walking faster than the second-place runner.
Poisner — a professor emeritus at the University of Kansas Medical Center— noted “accumulating evidence that runners slow down more than walkers as they pass the 85-90 age division, probably because long-term running is harder on the body than walking, where one foot must be on the ground at all times.” This was the last year that the National Senior Games will host racewalking events. The National Senior Games will now include only power walking, a less demanding event.
Poisner said he hopes to stay healthy enough to compete in the next Senior Games (2027) and may include power walking and road races in his list of events next year.