Faith O’Reilly isn’t just living her best life at 82, she’s lifting it.
The Colorado native is breaking barriers (and lifting serious weights) as the oldest female powerlifting participant at the 2025 National Senior Games. It’s the first time the sport is being included in the Games’ history, and Faith is already proving why it belongs.
“It’s really fun to see and interact with other people who are enjoying being more fit than the rest of our age group,” she said with a smile. “You know, the oldest person who competed in Pittsburgh was 103, so that gives me a goal.”
Faith’s journey into powerlifting didn’t start in a gym, it started in law school at the University of Iowa.
“I was watching it and thought, ‘Well, I can do that,’” she recalled. And she did. While juggling her studies, Faith won multiple Iowa state championships and eventually went on to teach legal studies and paralegal work in the criminal justice field.
After retiring and moving to the small town of Saguache, Colorado, she picked the sport back up in 2007, and hasn’t looked back since.
“It’s overall good for you physically,” she explained in an interview with the National Senior Games Association. “And as you age you can have problems with bone density and losing muscle tone.”
In 2023, she took home a gold medal in the women’s triathlon relay (75+ bracket) at the Senior Games in Pittsburgh, teaming up with her younger sister and a close friend.
O’Reilly joins a growing list of “silver lifters” who are proving that strength, resilience, and joy aren’t limited by age.
She’d recommend powerlifting to just about anyone. After all, she’s living proof that sometimes, the second act can be even stronger than the first.
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