Who will rise 86 storeys in about 45 minutes on February 1 and then plan on doing it again next year?
The answer, if experience is a guide, is Chico Scimone, a 94-year-old Italian musician.
Scimone will be among the more than 150 athletes taking part in the annual Fleet Empire State Building Run-Up, which consists of racing up 1 576 steps, or about a third of a kilometre, in what is now, sadly, New York’s tallest building.
Scimone is busy practising at Taormina, Sicily, where he lives, by running up the 140 steps of a parking garage four times a day.
Scimone, who also competes regularly in the Mediterranean Supermarathon in Palermo, attributes his feats to a regular life — up at 6am, followed by a dip in the ocean, a simple breakfast of bread and milk, a long walk, a lunch of cheese and vegetables gathered in his own garden and a beef steak and salad in the evening.
He says he has only one medical check-up a year — the race up the Empire State Building.
”If I get to the top, I’m OK,” he says.
He has been competing in the run-up for the past 15 years, and although he usually finishes last, about 35 minutes behind the winner, he is also among the most applauded.
The run-up began in 1978 as a means of promoting the Empire State Building and the New York Road Runners, which organises the race.
Scimone also plays the piano in a Taormina hotel, and used to be conductor of the Taormina Plectrum Orchestra, a Sicilian mandolin band. — Sapa-AFP