Members of the Tellico Village Pickleball Club made the trip this past week to Minneapolis to take part in the National Senior Games, formerly known as the National Senior Olympic Games, with numerous players qualifying for the event by winning a medal at the Tennessee Senior Olympics.

The duo of Fred Iskander and Weldon Humphries took a silver medal on the national stage in the 75 and older men’s doubles division, while Iskander grabbed gold as an individual in the 80 and older bracket. Iskander and Humphries had taken silver in the last running of the National Senior Games, which was held in 2013 in Cleveland, Ohio.

In the most recent event, Humphries and Iskander were handed an early loss and had to work their way through the loser’s bracket to position themselves in the finals against the team of Lee Hendrix and Bud Mcree of Nashville.

“It was a fun time but a grueling task, I’ll tell you,” Humphries said. “... It was a grueling day. We started about 1:30 on Saturday, and we finished up about 10:30 that evening. We played almost continuously with a few minutes break between games.”

Both Iskander and Humphries said they enjoyed playing in the all-Tennessee final and neither were disappointed to finish with the silver.

“The guys that beat us were pretty darn good,” Iskander said. “They had just got in our age group. We were older than them, but they were definitely the better team. They deserved to win.”

On the solo side of competition, Iskander played at the National Senior Games in an individual bracket for the first time and went through without a loss, defeating Arthur Middleton of Washington, D.C., in the finals, who was the defending gold medal winner.

“There were 12 competitors in my age group and several of them were pretty darn good,” Iskander said. “The one guy who was the man to beat had won every title. He had won the men’s doubles (and) the mixed doubles. He was the defending champion. He had won the gold last time the National Senior Games. I was told he also won the (Huntsman World Senior Games), which is a bigger event than even the National Senior Games. He was the reigning champ in every way. That’s the thrill of it.”

Middleton was upset in the second round of the winner’s bracket but worked his way back to meet Iskander in the finals. Middleton then took the first game of the final round to take an early advantage on Iskander.

“The final game against him, you have to win two out of three,” Iskander said. “He took the first game, and I was thinking I was so tired, so exhausted from all the playing, kind of wishing he would win so I could go home and stretch out.”

But Iskander didn’t settle for second place. Instead, he began to find out where he could attack to win.

“He started showing some weaknesses, and I said, ‘Hey, I can beat this guy’,” he said. “So I fought back and fought back and began to see where the weaknesses are. I took the second game. It was a long game.”

While Iskander and Humphries were the only medal winners from Tellico Village at the National Senior Games, other Villagers said they were glad to have the experience of taking part in the games.

Ron Wendoloski, who competed as         an individual and with a mixed doubles and men’s doubles team at the games, said the level of competition at the games was far ahead of what he had seen at the Tennessee Senior Olympics finals, adding that he enjoyed being a spectator of some of the top players as much as competing.

“Let me say that I was not naive, and I didn’t have any high expectations going to compete on a national level,” Wendoloski said. “... At the national games in Minneapolis I saw skill level of players that were one or two levels beyond that of which I saw at Tennessee state finals.”

Wendoloski’s mixed doubles partner, Janet Winslow, enjoyed taking in the city of Minneapolis. She said she valued the chance to interact with the other athletes.

“It was really quite a wonderful experience,” Winslow said. “The people there were so nice. They weren’t playing any head games. They’d get up and give you their chair and say thank you. We could joke around with one another without anyone getting upset. It was just wonderful.”

Winslow also said she enjoyed her experience visiting Minneapolis.

“The town was quite nice,” Winslow said. “... It was larger than I had anticipated. The people were wonderful, just wonderful. Inside the tournament, outside the tournament and all around the town.”

All four competitors said they hope to return to the games in 2017.