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LONDON (AP) -- In 1948, John Peake won a silver medal at the Olympic Games in London. In 2021, also in London, he struck what many would consider gold, receiving his first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
Amid growing concerns over rising COVID outbreaks at nursing homes in Britain, the 96-year-old was one of the 45 residents at Wimbledon Beaumont Care Community in southwest London to receive the vaccine Wednesday developed by the University of Oxford and British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
"I'm glad to have it and I appreciate the fact that it has come to this place early," he told The Associated Press after receiving his jab.
Peake was the youngest member of the 1948 British field hockey team that lost 4-0 to India in the final at Wembley Stadium in the first Olympics after World War II.
"I think I'm lucky to have lasted as long as I have," he said.
Yet Peake, who is one of the oldest surviving Olympians, was not even the oldest to get the shot at the nursing home.