Meet the 70-year-old athlete pole vaulting her way through life
Slowing down is not in her vocabulary
As a child, whether you played a tree in the annual day concert, or won the three-legged race on sports day, you might have had your parents in the audience, camera in hand, loudly clapping and cheering for you. Their ecstatic, sometimes teary-eyed expressions reflecting just one sentiment: “That’s my child up there.”
In Rukmini Devi Talluri’s family, it’s just as emotional an experience, except the roles are reversed. Over the years, the Chennai-based athlete has given her children and grandchildren endless opportunities to delight in her achievements. Achievements, which by any measure—not just the loving gaze of family—are extraordinary.
To begin with, she’s 70 years old. And as recently as November 2025, took home the gold in the pole vault and hammer throw events at the 23rd Asia Masters Athletics Championship, a tournament for seniors who have defied age barriers to pursue athletics.
At an age where resting and relaxing is the norm, it may be surprising for people to see someone pursuing a path that requires both physical and mental grit. But for Talluri, it’s just a matter of habit.
Get set, go
Talluri’s love for sports blossomed in her childhood, when she was still in school in Mumbai. “My journey with athletics started because of my father, who was a civil engineer in the military, and firmly believed in being disciplined. When I was a kid, he made sure that we didn’t just sit at home in the evenings. We had to go out and walk, cycle, or play,” she recounts.
She was a sports star in school, frequently participating in and winning events like the 100m race and long jump. When she started college in Hyderabad when her father was transferred there, it was basketball that piqued her interest, and she eventually joined the college team. Her noticeable skills at the inter-collegiate, zonal, inter-zonal and district levels, got Talluri selected for the state team. “I went on to represent Andhra Pradesh in national basketball competitions from 1974 to 1977, and even captained the team once. Because of my sports performance, I became a guest player for South Central Railways for a year, before securing a job there through the sports quota in 1979.” She was 25 then, and besides basketball, she also represented the Railways in volleyball the same year and played handball on a national level from 1979 to 1981.
A year later, Talluri took up a job as a clerk at Indian Overseas Bank, after passing the selection exam and interview. But seeing how she didn’t get the job through the sports quota, playing was no longer a part of her KRAs. When she got married in 1981 and moved to Chennai, the break in her sporting journey only lengthened. “I had moved to a new city and was getting acquainted with a new family and workplace, which needed all my time and attention. So there was a time period when I didn’t engage in sports at all,” she shares. While her priorities had changed, Talluri was still confident she would eventually get back on the field.
Back from the bench
After just a few years, the desire to resume her journey began nudging Talluri—and unlike a lot of women, she found only help and encouragement to dive back in. “My in-laws were aware of my interest in sports. And when I told them I wished to continue playing, they were nothing but supportive,” she recalls.
At Indian Overseas Bank, her then workplace, as a representative of the employees’ union, she started an extracurricular sports program where employees could form teams and compete with other banks in different sports. The programme was successful and she participated in several inter-bank competitions in the 1990s, even captaining the throwball and tennikoit teams from 1994 to 1996.
This marked the revival of her sporting journey. But her ambition was bigger than that, and fate stepped in to help her get there in 2004. “I was reading the newspaper one day and saw an advertisement calling for senior sportspersons (aged 35 and above) to register as a Masters (veteran) athlete. I took a chance and enrolled,” recalls Talluri who was 49 then. Her two daughters were old enough to manage themselves and her joint family took care of everything, allowing her to focus on her job and re-enter competitive athletics.
But always eager to test her limits, Talluri didn’t pursue the sports she had played before. She decided to enter into discus throw and javelin. “I saw a woman practising the discus throw at a stadium in Chennai while I was practising there myself, and it piqued my interest. I wanted to try it. And eventually, my coach suggested that I try javelin as well.” After months of training, she registered for these two events in the National Masters Athletics Championship 2004, and ended up winning a bronze medal in javelin throw.
No finish line
After consistently participating in the National Masters Championship for four years, she qualified for and participated in her first Asia Masters Athletics Championship in 2008. Since then, Talluri has participated in eight such tournaments, bagging over 100 medals in javelin throw, hammer throw, pole vault, and other events.
Her family expressed some concern about when she took up pole vault as it would require high jumping, and that could be risky. “My family wasn’t as concerned about pole vaulting when I started in my 50s, as they are now that I am 70,” she says. But her resolve ultimately overpowered their doubts. “My coach was extremely confident in my capability. I practised rigorously, and when I could jump a little high, I knew I would be able to pull it off,” she says. And her family was by her side at her tournaments, cheering the loudest for her.
With so many wins and having achieved such extraordinary feats of physical and mental endurance, another person might take a moment to rest on their laurels. But not Talluri. She retired from her job in 2015, but is not even close to retiring from her dreams. Her next goal is to participate in the World Masters Athletics Championship, which will be held in August 2026, and will include athletes from across the globe. And for that, her training continues.
Anatomy of a champion
On a normal day, you will find Talluri at Nehru Stadium or YMCA in Chennai between 6 and 8 am, practising and training for her upcoming competitions. Some evenings too are reserved for athletics.
One would assume she eats some kind of rare superfood or keeps an ironclad diet that gives her the power to undergo this level of physical training at 70, just like Popeye derived his strength from spinach. But that’s not the case. “I don’t follow any particular diet. I eat lots of fruits and nuts, and most importantly, I eat whenever I am hungry,” she says (check nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar’s ultimate hack to eating healthy).
But intuitive diet and regular practice aside, what really empowers Talluri to pursue her dreams is her mental resolve, “I make up my mind first. I take up a job or a responsibility only if I am fully confident that I will be able to see it through, and do justice to it,” she says. “There are athletes who are 90-plus and full of energy. Think about the level of determination they have. I get inspired by them. Honestly, the word ‘tired’ is not in my dictionary. I like keeping myself busy.”
And she always is busy. In addition to her athletics training, she does a once-a-week fitness class too. And Talluri’s interests extend beyond athletics as well. She attends a Kuchipudi dance class once a week , an interest she developed while taking her daughters to dance classes in their childhood. When they stopped learning, she did too, and got back to it only recently.
People are always telling her how inspired they are by her journey, and how they also wish to be doing the things they love when they’re her age. To that she says, “There is always something to learn and always someone to learn from”. It is this steadfast fire that carries her through every challenge, and drives her to keep the light of her dreams burning, irrespective of her age. She doesn’t believe in slowing down, only rising up.
