Earlier this month, about 12,000 senior athletes competed in the annual event in Pittsburgh. He's also competed in every National Senior Games since the event's inception in 1987. 'I got a lot of comments about that, a lot of praise.'

'The other record had been 50 minutes and some seconds, so that was quite outstanding,' Englert said. At the same event in 2019, he set another world record for completing a 5,000-meter race in just over 42 mins. In 2018, he set a world record for men in the 95-99 age group at the USA Track and Field Masters Outdoor Championships, finishing the 800-meter race in under 6 minutes. In 2014, Englert and a team of 90-year-olds set a world record in the 4x100-, 4x400- and 4x800-meter relays. His record over the decades has gotten more and more impressive. We were close in, and they were shooting over us. Around daybreak … battleships and cruisers behind us started shelling the beach, and it was a spectacular fireworks display. 'We had about 300 or 400 troops who we were ready to discharge onto the beach. 'We arrived off the coast of France, Utah Beach, around 4:30 in the morning,' Englert remembered.

He served as a supply officer on a landing ship, or LST, that carried troops and equipment to the beachheads. He joined the Naval Reserve his junior year of college and worked out a deal to join the war effort after graduation in 1943.Įnglert was part of the massive force that took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. He got his first job at 19 while also getting a degree from Vanderbilt University.

He grew up in Nashville during the Great Depression, and when his father died when he was 5, he had to help his mother take care of his sister. Either way, Englert has a pretty amazing story to tell.

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