Past

Doug Conway

Sydney's World Masters Games will be the biggest ever, attracting more than 29,000 competitors from 106 countries, including two centenarians.

The event's seventh edition will be two and a half times bigger than the Beijing Olympics in terms of athlete numbers.

Australia's appetite for sport is reflected in the fact that Australia's three Masters Games now fill gold, silver and bronze positions in competitor popularity.

Brisbane and Melbourne both drew over 24,000 in 1994 and 2002 respectively.

The only other comparable attendance was the 21,600 at Edmonton, Canada, in 2005.

The oldest entrant will be Reg Trewin, a 101-year-old lawn bowler from Griffith in New South Wales, Games organisers confirmed on Wednesday.

The oldest woman will be Brisbane field athlete Ruth Frith, who turns 100 this month.

The Games are for people of all levels of ability, underlined by the fact that more than 100 Olympians have registered for the October 10-18 event.

The youngest competitor will be Canadian Facundo Chernikoff, who scrapes into swimming's minimum age of 25 by just 10 days.

Canadians are the most enthusiastic among foreign nations with 2,750 entrants, followed by New Zealand (1,488), the US (938) and the UK (466).

The top five sports are football with 2,634 competitors), athletics (2,593), softball (2,439), swimming (1,880) and rowing (1,584).

International travelling parties include a netball team from Sri Lanka, a softball team from Botswana and a volleyball team from Lithuania.

The Games registration count stood at 29,169 on Wednesday, with the host nation accounting for the bulk with 19,362 -

10,680 from NSW and 8,682 from interstate.

"We've met our first two targets, securing the Games for Sydney and then attracting a record number of entrants," said Games Chair Margy Osmond.

"Now were focusing on delivering the best-ever Games, something Sydney did for the Olympics at the start of the decade and something Sydney will do again at the end of the decade, this time for the World Masters."