Where are his 17 children? it is likely that most of them are dead.
Where are his 17 children? it is likely that most of them are dead.
They give his full name on Wikipedia (not that it means much, mind you):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Martin
I think for certification purposes they should still produce a birth certificate/witnesses.
As long as Buster doesn't try to make his "records" official, people are going to give this guy a pass. He's being held up by politicians as the poster boy of what old folks can do, and he's running for charity, so whoever bursts the bubble will be look upon as a spoilt sport.
Too many of the video reports about Buster describe him as a marathoner and yet all he's supposedly accomplished is walking 21 kilometres.
If they label him a marathoner when he hasn't done one, doesn't that tip you off to how clueless the reporters are?
Watching the ytube video interview....no way he's 100.
I'd say maybe 65.
He is 3x's more animated while talking than any 100 yr olds I've seen. The older you get the more you sit still while talking etc....All my grandparents lived to 85 to 95...
Buster update
Mr Universe wrote:
...no way he's 100.
I'd say maybe 65...
I agree that he likely isn't 100, but he is well over 65. Looks like a healthy 80 year-old to me.
He's dirty on EPO. No doubt. Nobody could jog at 101 without it. And he's probably not even 101. Doesn't look a day over 99.
Bah!
Buster is such a media whore.
I don't think this dude's 101 either!
I've run this race in Reno, NV a bunch of times... The infamous 8K Journal Jog! Well, about 6 years ago I ran a blistering LOW 32:00ish.
After I got done, I checked out the results and saw I got BEAT by an 81 year old dude! I was thinking, WOW... That's amazing... Until I checked out the masters records and found this guy would've taken out EVERY record from 1500 to 10K in ONE RACE, at high elevation (4,500 ft) and on a hilly course!
They did an article on him in the Reno Journal Gazette(The race sponsor) about his feat. I looked him up on our local running database and found some interesting info. He only had 3 races listed... All Journal Jog from 1999 to 2002, he aged 6 years in 3 years time span (75-81), and improved his time from a 51:57 to a 34:48 to a BLAZING 31:41!
Not TOO shabby! Here's his results right here:
Peter Fleming 49 1 81 M 0:31:41 6:22 9/22/2002 Journal Jog 8K
Peter Fleming 92 1 78 M 0:34:48 6:59 9/30/2001 Journal Jog 8K
Peter Fleming 543 1 75 M 0:51:57 10:27 10/10/1999 Journal Jog 8K
Check it here:
I wrote a letter to the paper and told them of my findings. They admitted they should have checked him out a little more carefully before writing an article on him, but said they weren't going to pursue it, since it was ONLY a fun run.
He hasn't run one since, so either they contacted him and he knew he was BUSTED, or he died? Who knows!
I put a comment on the "101" year old dude's plumbing site asking to see some proof for the guy's age and the LOSER'S deleted it!
They're usin' his scam all the way to the bank!
Hahahaha....Eric Headley, the dude who is first talking in the cnn video looks far older than Buster.
Runnindude wrote:
I put a comment on the "101" year old dude's plumbing site asking to see some proof for the guy's age and the LOSER'S deleted it!
"LoOsers"
Idiot.
Very interesting. I'm not surprised. Of course they deleted it - gotta keep the scam going while erasing (literally) doubt. I would hope none of the official running bodies that keep track of these things would consider any of "Buster"'s times as records without a lot more proof than his say-so. As I said in my original post, no way he's 101. Just no way.
the la times ran a story on good ole buster, turns out his birthday party for his 100th came a few years early.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-marathon12apr12,1,3899136.story
short version: buster is about 94. buster martin has given different years of birth at different times. it turns out all the people that can vouch for his age, when you trace how they got the info it turns out they ultimately got it from buster himself or from someone/thing that buster previously gave the info to.
i like that a paper in america seems to be the only one to expose this scam.
i also wonder if pimlico plumbing will get rid of buster since he appears to have lied on his application for employment.
Someone mentioned National Insurance number. There seems to be some relation between the NI number and the year of birth but it's not straight forward, as far as I know. There was a document on the web for a while (seems to have disappeared now) which had his NHS number and his NAT INS No. on it. It started with the letters "SC". Those who know more about it, can you conclude anything from it?
It was me who mentioned it. There is no valid NINO which starts with SC so cannot place a year to it - in fact prefix SC will be allocated in about 4 years time:
(scroll down to Appendix 1 page 36)
Historically, NI Number prefixes were allocated regionally and the period over which they were issued varied considerably. In October 1988, a national system of prefixes was introduced and, in 1992, as a part of the process, a CRN was allocated in bulk to every child in the Child Benefit system at the time.
Prior to 1992, an NI number was allocated to each child at about the time the child turned 16. The numbers were allocated from school records, so children whose names were next to each other alphabetically in the class register will often have consecutive NI numbers.
http://www.paypershop.com/news-cat/payrolltips134.html
it would be good to see that document and investigate further
Thanks. I found the document again. As you will see it has little value although it is labelled as "proof of birth!". See second page of "Press Cuttings" on http://capsule.the100yearwebsite.com/viewcapsule/101-years-old--
OK, this is hilarious. Last year at my local, the Slaughtered Lamb, we held a birthday party for one of my mates, Buster. He was turning 50 years old and was working at that plumber company. Since he was a grey-beard we used to bust his arse about his true age. We said he was turning 100. I guess some folks believed it, and here we are a year later, with good ol' Buster now 101 and world-famous.