105-Year-Old Breaks World Cycling Record – and He Doesn’t Eat Meat!

You’ve probably already come across this story while scrolling Facebook or Twitter, but it’s just so amazing that we have to talk about it. 105-year-old cyclist Robert Marchand just set the world record at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome outside Paris on Wednesday. Marchand set a new record, in the over-100s age category, for distance by cycling 14 miles in just an hour. We’re impressed. Most of us wish for a long, healthful life but this guy is living it. And get this — he just switched to a vegetarian diet.

Most of us wish for a long, healthful life but this guy is living it. And get this — he switched to a vegetarian diet just one month prior and his good friend Gerard Mistler attributes Marchand’s success to his healthy diet and lifestyle. But not everyone feels the same way. Marchand’s physiologist, Veronique Billat, told The Associated Press “we could have been faster but he made a big mistake. He has stopped eating meat over the past month after being shocked by recent reports on how animals are subjected to cruel treatment.” Marchand has a different story to tell, “I did not see the sign warning me I had 10 minutes left, otherwise I would have gone faster.” Checkmate.

Not to mention, you don’t need meat to be a successful athlete. Athletes who eat a vegan diet can be found in practically every sport and they are absolutely killing it. Dick Farris, Team USA’s only male weightlifter at the Rio Olympics, went vegan in 2014 and broke an American lifting record just last year.  Back in November, Hulda B. Waage, an Icelandic powerlifter, also broke a national record. David Carter, also known as The 300-Pound Vegan, is an American football player who shows the world that you can be big, strong, and powered by plants.

So, Marchand made a mistake? Nah. If you ask us, it’s not just a pretty big coincidence that he broke a record just one month after deciding to leave meat off his plate.

Lead image source: AP Photo/Thibault Camus