Ten thousand Senior Olympians begin arriving in Pittsburgh next weekend with 10,000 different stories of sports mastered, diseases battled, frailties postponed and childhood athletics revisited.

Daniel R. Patmore/Associated Press Harold Carey, 82, of Evansville, Ind., stays in step to compete with daily training. Click photo for larger image. Related articles: Who's playing Roger Brockenbrough, 70, Mt. Lebanon Carol McCollough, 61, Chicora, Butler County Cherrie Sherrard, 66 Vallejo, Calif. Jack Bray, 72 Marin County, Calif. Trent Lane, 95 Baker, La. Harold Carey, 82 Evansville, Ind. 2005 Summer National Senior Games information

The participants in the 10th Summer National Senior Games, held in Pennsylvania for the first time, range from record-holders in their 50s to people just happy to compete in their 80s, 90s and beyond.

The University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Schenley and North parks will be populated June 3-18 by ex-Olympians and former college jocks who aim to set records, career-minded people who gave up sports for decades and women who never got the chance to compete before Title IX.

It's the kind of Olympics in which steroid controversies take a back seat to the idea of staying on your feet, to keep moving as fast and strong as you can, as long as you can. The 50-and-older competitors may not have the grace and skill of what people are accustomed to seeing on ESPN, but hey, everything's relative.

"You'll see a team that's had cancer, hip replacements and knee replacements," said Katherine Oswalt, lymphoma survivor and player-coach of the Michigan Mavericks, a 70-and-older softball team, the oldest woman among them 86.

"There's people worse off," said Oswalt, 79, who was raised near Brownsville in rural Fayette County. The florist from Garden City, Mich., might have to bench herself for her team's games in North Park because of a heart ailment, but she'll be there regardless.

"You can't worry about it sitting around the house, because you're not going to get anywhere. You've got to get out and do something."

She's been competing against other women in softball consistently for half a century, but there are plenty of other Senior Olympians who waited till children were grown, careers were complete and a nudge was received to enter a race or join a team.

And then, much to their delight, they discovered they were pretty good. At least good enough to place first or second in state competition, which is what's required to qualify for the event sponsored every two years by the National Senior Games Association.

Della Works, 69, a Casper, Wyo., ex-teacher with 14 grandchildren, never competed in anything before she turned 50. In early June, she'll be in her seventh national games, running the 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, 1,500 meters, 5K and 10K and doing the long jump, discus and shot put.

That's 10 potential gold medals. The number she expects to fly home with? Zero. The camaraderie at Senior Olympics means more to her anyway. She'll share a dorm room at Carnegie Mellon with friends from around the country who enjoy the event as a reunion every two years.

"They'll have other people who are former Olympians, and coaches who are retired and know exactly what they're doing," said Works, who earlier this year was the oldest female competitor running a marathon in Antarctica. "Me, I'm just kind of a fitness freak. I enjoy the exercise and eating well and living well."

The city's gray-haired population will swell with a lot more people like Della Works than like Jack Bray, a 72-year-old Californian who will be disappointed if he doesn't leave with one or two gold medals and new records in race-walking.

Some competitors will be in their 90s, maybe even 100 in a couple of cases. They will receive medals because there are so few participants in their age groups. And they will be showered with attention for doing more than peers whose only glimpse of a track, court or field of play comes on television.

"The important thing is they're still active and staying physically fit, and that's helped improve their quality of life and helped improve their longevity," Greg Moore, director of national games and athlete relations for the National Senior Games Association, said of the oldest competitors.

Officials from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center gathered support for Pittsburgh to be host of the event from local government officials and institutions on the basis that the athletes would set such a good example for the area's large senior population.

Budget limits have hindered the Pittsburgh Local Organizing Committee's ability to promote the Senior Olympics heavily, so it's not known how many people will actually witness the competition, which is free for spectators. Still, they might run into local entrants such as George H. Wagner and Joy Brewer any time of year and gain some motivation.

Wagner, 85, an archery competitor from New Brighton, said, "I shoot almost every day. It's a lot of fun, and it keeps me in shape. ... And I get up in the morning and go to New Brighton track and walk a mile and a half to two miles five days a week."

The former heart bypass patient who calls himself a "hillbilly farmer" and former heavy equipment operator has won three gold medals at the seven national Senior Olympics he's attended.

"It's fantastic," Wagner said of the event. "I've been to all of these state and national [Olympics], and I've yet to see an argument. That's hard to believe, I know. They might have had some, but I've never seen them. Mostly, people are just happy they can be there to compete, win or lose."

Brewer, 57, of Zelienople plays basketball and volleyball with the women representing the multi-team Butler Cubs organization. She's never been in a national Senior Olympics and never participated in any organized sports except in a Hampton girls softball league when she was growing up.

Now she'll be competing at the Petersen Events Center, which she's never been inside.

"I'm anxious for it to happen, to see how we fare," said the Seneca Valley School District reading teacher, who underwent chemotherapy last year for cancer, now in remission.

Some competitors will come from as far away as Hawaii and Alaska. California sends a huge delegation. But the host region and state always have a particularly high number, considering their travel is easier and less costly.

Elizabeth Prycl of Hempfield, a veteran of every national Senior Olympics since the first one in St. Louis in 1987, will be participating once more. The 83-year-old swim instructor will be swimming in six events, plus throwing the shot put, discus and javelin.

She can't possibly count all of the national medals and state ribbons she's won -- she gives them away to the youngsters she teaches how to swim.

The honors aren't the thing, she says. It's the boost the exercise provides in warding off the frailties associated with aging, which is the same enemy battled by every Senior Olympics competitor, by those their age who watch them and by those sitting at home ignoring them.

Prycl just figures as a Senior Olympian, she's ahead of the game, even if she may be slowing a little every year.

"I look in the mirror, and I'm old to me," she said. "But what I do I guess, basically, isn't old."