We've all got a story to tell. Have you overcome challenges to be the athlete you are today? Let us know. Do you have a favorite or funny experience that happened while at the Huntsman World Senior Games? We want to hear about it. Fill out the form below to share your experiences.

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Hello, My name is Barry Meisel from Spain. I have won previous gold medals at the Huntsmans Senior Games. please see my story in the link below. Thank you. http://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/costa-del-sol/86553-retired-ex-pat-heading-to-vegas-senior-olympics

First Time Bowler

Hi everyone.

I live in Portland, Oregon. Last year, 2011, when my husband, a 200+ scratch bowler decided to enter the Huntsman Senior World Games for the first time in the Bowling competition. I was eager to support him and looked forward to the trip.

I had no intention of entering the competition with my meager average. Jack's been the accomplished bowler in the family, hitting 803 last year in league play. He's also rolled multiple 300 games. However, since during many of our 55 years of marriage we had bowled together on a team, I decided to take the plunge and sign up too.

I considered my role as "supporter."

"Besides," I told myself, "No one knows me. I can be nearly invisible, no matter how I bowl."

On the morning of Bowling-Singles, we ate at one of St. George's many wonderful restaurants. I wanted to keep my salt intake down so I could get my fingers into the ball. I ordered . . . "Wheaties, The Breakfast of Champions."

God smiled at that!

He allowed me to qualify.

I continued to eat the Wheaties each day, and went beyond qualifying to earning a Gold Medal! I also qualified in Handicap Doubles with my husband, and we earned a bronze medal in that competition.

By the way, aside from the magic of "Wheaties" and the "Breakfast of Champions" partnership with GOD, there was no way to be invisible among a fantastic group of competitors that cared about everyone. Even me.

Jack and I met many outstanding people, event coordinators, and especially, the fine waitresses at all the restaurants. (In particular, the mornings at the Cracker Barrel) We are looking forward to a return trip.

With best wishes for another successful World event, I remain,

Shirley Hawe

From Israel to St. George to play Table TennisFrom Israel to St. George to play Table tennis?!

I started playing table tennis in my country, Israel, when I was a kid. I was good in all sports but my father directed me towards Table Tennis because one of his brothers who was killed in WW2 as a soldier in the Red Army was one of the best players in Poland. When I was 16 years old I played in the Israeli first division. My first coach was Giora Senesh, a former Hungarian player who came to Israel and was a member of the Israeli National Team. Giora is (88 years old, God bless him) the brother of the famous Hanna Senesh, a 16 year old Jewish girl who made it to Israel during the Nazi time and went back, parachuting into occupied Hungary to save Jews. She was captured by the Nazis and executed. Giora told me when I was 14 years old: in order to play table tennis you need three things: first, you need to position your body; I'll teach you how to do that, second, you need to learn the technique of the strokes; I'll teach you to do that also, and third, you need to play when your body is on one side of the table and your mind is on the other side; this you need to figure out by yourself...

At the age of 18 in Israel we go to the army for a few years. That resulted for me in a 10 year break in Table Tennis. When I got back, in the mid 80's, it was not the same game. Anti-spin and other funny rubbers were already in use, the importance of serves boosted and in Israel another thing happened: the old generation, mainly players who came from Europe after WW2 became coaches and a new generation of modern, fast attacking players were controlling our sport. By that time I was already a manager in the Israeli Ports Authority, married and a father, so I decided to make this my hobby.

Twenty-five years have now gone by.  In these years I have played in 3 different clubs. My current club in Israel, Maccabbi Zichron Jacob, is one of the most active clubs in Israel. We have about 50 kids, some of them very good and about 25 adults some of them excellent players who would be rated over 2000 in the US.

My wife and I have family in California and in Florida so sometimes we come to visit them.  My work also takes me from time to time to the States so I started to play in the US whenever I get the chance. I played in the US OPEN, in the California OPEN and I played three times in the Baltimore team event (great fun!).

This year I found out that I will not be able to make it to Baltimore so I started looking for another tournament I can enjoy and I came across the Huntsman World Senior Games. Soon enough I remembered that my wife and I have already visited St. George Utah in 1979 while we were on a trip in the US before we got married. At that time it was on our way to tour Zion and Bryce. I must admit it was not difficult to convince my wife to take this trip, one week with the family in California before the games and a few days in Vegas after and the decision was made.

More than that, I even managed to convince a colleague from my club in Israel, Yair Porges to join us in St. George. Ok, so I figured: I will take 2 single events (age and rating) 1 double event with my friend Yair and I will look for a lady to partner with me for the mixed doubles. I put my name on the partner finder and soon enough I found a partner: Gloria Cadavid from San Antonio Texas, so I am ready to go.

Table Tennis

Now the adventure begins: we spent a great week in California, a few days in LA and a trip to wineries of Temecula Valley (beautiful!), a few hours' drive and we are in St. George. Well, nothing like we remembered! It is a big town now, checked into the hotel and went to meet my partners, Yair my friend from Israel who came directly here, and Gloria whom I met for the first time. Gloria came with her 2 sisters who live in Colombia; fortunately my wife was born in Cuba so the Spanish ruled the conversations (Yair and I understood very little.....). 

The competition proved to be great fun. The atmosphere was excellent, very friendly (do not get confused, each and every player fought to the last point), ran smoothly by the professional staff and the charming volunteers, the venue was ok (there were some lighting issues, the barriers between the tables were not friendly and the floor a bit slippery) but the competition was great. Personally I made it into the semi-finals in the 2 individual events I participated, losing in both semi's and fighting twice for the bronze, losing one (the age event 55-59 to Moses Lan) and winning the bronze in the rating event (1600-1799 over George Taplin).  

In the mixed doubles, Gloria and I made it to the final of the 50-54 group, after 2 matches we won 3:2 after being 0:2 down in both!, we lost the final 3:1 to Francisco and Sandra Mendez and won Silver. The medal ceremony was nice and the goodbyes were exciting, so after that we felt we earned a nice Vegas vacation.

So I was not the best player in the Huntsman Games but I surely made the longest way getting there...if I can handle the high resources necessary for me to come here again, I will definitely do so.