At 66, Olympic champion Edwin Moses still has the look of a world-class athlete

Friends are amazed to see Edwin Moses still wearing the same stylish, custom suits he sported in the 1980s, when he was the top 400-meter hurdler in the world.

Moses, 66, has gained only four or five pounds since retiring from track and field in 1988. “I don’t need to have a new wardrobe,” he’ll tell his friends. “I’ve got nice clothes and I don’t want to have to retool.”

Then they invariably ask, “‘What do you do? You look like you could run.”

While Moses agrees he looks the part, he said he doesn’t have the oxygen or the muscle control to get back on the starting line. “That’s definitely a young man’s game,” Moses said.

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And yet the two-time Olympic champion doesn’t know many people his age who can bound up three or four steps at a time or clear a couple of hurdles when he feels like it.

“That’s just my thing,” he said, “like a seamstress can always sew.”

An astonishing winning streak

In 1976, as a relative newcomer to the 400-meter hurdles, the 6-foot-2 Moses pioneered a 13-stride pattern that made him the most dominant figure in the event for more than a decade. He won the Olympic gold medal in 1976, likely would have captured another in 1980 if not for the U.S.-led boycott and then was victorious again in 1984. Moses capped his career four years later with an Olympic bronze medal.

He also put together one of the most formidable streaks in sports history. Moses won 122 straight races, including 107 finals, between 1977 and 1987. After the streak ended at nine years, nine months and nine days, Moses returned to the top of the podium with his second world championships gold medal. And his time of 47.02 seconds from 1983 still makes him the No. 6 performer of all time.

“When I look back at it, especially 40 years later, it’s unimaginable now to think about being in that kind of condition for that many years,” Moses said.

After his track career, he was a brakeman for the U.S. bobsled team from 1990-92 winning a bronze medal in a two-man World Cup in Germany.

Since then, Moses has remained trim through studious attention to his diet.

“Diet is No. 1,” said Moses. “You can exercise all you want, but if you’re putting the wrong things in your body, it doesn’t matter. I come from a family that has a history of heart disease and diabetes. Thirty years ago, I really didn’t think about it, but when I hit my 50s I made a conscious decision that that was not going to be me. So, excess sugar, salt, sauces, mayonnaise and fried foods, those are the five big no-nos for me.”

Moses eats some of the same dishes that he fixed while earning a degree in physics at Morehouse College, such as one mainstay with squash, carrots, celery and tomatoes.

“I still love it,” he said, “and it does exactly the same thing for me as it did that many years ago.”

But don’t assume Moses doesn’t know his way around the kitchen.

“I can cook anything,” he said. “I’m like Top Chef. I can cook you a lobster bisque, I do soups, I make salads, I even do baking. I can grill the best steak, I can do the best pasta…”

He makes tabbouleh with ingredients from his garden in Atlanta, where he grows herbs, figs, blackberries, tomatoes and squash. “That’s my hobby and I enjoy planting my own food,” Moses said. “I lot of my physical activity comes from that.”

Rejuvenation during the pandemic

He’s had more time to move dirt around since the lockdown. Before the pandemic, Moses was constantly on the road for speaking engagements and in his roles as chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy – he recently stepped down to become chairman of the Laureus Foundation USA – and emeritus chair of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Moses logged seven international and five domestic trips from September 2019 to February 2020.

“I’ve been rejuvenated,” he said. “I’m sure I put years on my life by not having to be out there.”

At home, Moses maintains his level of fitness mostly by doing calisthenics and stretching exercises. He might do four sets of 25 push-ups up to three times a day or do 300 sit-ups.

Several years ago when Moses began hearing about Pilates, he looked at some websites to see what it was. “I said to myself, ‘These Pilates people had cameras up in the trees watching me work out,’” Moses said. “I was doing the exact same thing back in the 1970s.”

He goes to a nearby university to use the weight room and has four bicycles, including one set up on a trainer.

“If I do 20 minutes three times a week (on a bike), for me that’s enough,” Moses said. “Everywhere I go, I power walk.”

And he does this despite sustaining a traumatic brain injury in the summer of 2017 that left him briefly paralyzed from the waist down.

“Like a stroke victim I had to learn how to walk all over again,” he said. “Diet was very, very important during that time.”

Moses suffered a concussion when he fell down some steps in July 2017. About six weeks later, he slammed his head into the door jamb of his car while trying to toss something into the passenger seat. Moses subsequently noticed his foot banging into steps and dragging. About 10 days later, his condition had degenerated into paralysis due to a subdural hematoma.

With the help of Rene Besozzi, a physical trainer who had been a top 100-meter hurdler for the U.S., Moses gradually recovered. Besozzi, who lives in Italy, moved to Atlanta to help for three months.

“I was able to move very tentatively by the end of October, but I was struggling,” Moses said. “It took another two years for me to be able to walk without having my hands ready to catch myself.”

While Besozzi was being interviewed for an upcoming documentary about Moses, he surprised her. “She turned around on camera,” Moses said, “and I was jumping over a couple of chairs. She almost cried. She told me from the beginning, ‘I’m not going to stop until Edwin can run hurdles again.’”

Only recently has Moses felt like he’s regained all of his language and analytical skills.

“Except for the fact that I was a world-class athlete, I don’t think that I would be in the condition I am now,” he said.

He wants to write a book sharing his views on diet and exercise that is specifically for men.

“There are so many books out there for women’s health and psychology,” he said. “Men kind of get forgotten. I want something that’s simple enough for men to be able to say, ‘Edwin Moses said I can eat this and I cook it this way. And I can have this combination of vegetables and really great salads and a couple of soups that are easy to make.’

“I really think there’s a place for that.”

As Moses knows, sometimes it’s just a matter of clearing hurdles.