The longevity sport industry is an emerging field where participants compete to reverse biological aging and optimize health, turning longevity into a measurable and dynamic competition.
Dr. Oliver Zolman, a medical doctor, healthcare consultant, and founder of 20one Consulting, created the first longevity leaderboards where both people and animals competed with each other for better biological aging clocks. Participants were required to publicly share biomarker evidence, adhering to a 15-point statistical algorithm known as the Zolman Biological Age Marker (Z-BAM) criteria. These leaderboards were carefully verified by third parties to prevent data manipulation and maintain scientific credibility.
Today, his leaderboards are "Undergoing update".
Dr. Zolman, who was at the time also the Chief Scientist for Bryan Johnson—today's most prominent longevity athlete—and Bryan Johnson teamed up with TruDiagnostic, a company that sells epigenetic aging tests, to create the Rejuvenation Olympics. In this competition, people competed with each other to achieve better DunedinPACE scores, which aim to measure a person's pace of aging. Two leaderboards were launched: a relative one and an absolute one.
In the relative leaderboard, scores were given based on how much someone improved from their baseline, while in the absolute leaderboard, the absolute pace of aging reversal compared to chronological age was counted.
These leaderboards gave rise to pioneer longevity athletes like Julie Gibson Clark and Dave Pascoe.
nopara73, a software developer, privacy researcher, and Bitcoin pioneer, made a sudden career change and started a series of interviews with longevity athletes called The Immortal Combat.
TruDiagnostic launched the second version of the Rejuvenation Olympics. Major changes include the number of athletes now being unlimited, instead of being limited to 20 as previously. It now focuses on absolute pace of aging (DunedinPACE) instead of comparing improvements to baseline or factoring in chronological age.
nopara73 launched the Longevity World Cup using PhenoAge, a biological aging clock which can be acquired through regular blood tests. In this competition, absolute age reversal relative to chronological age is counted. This competition introduced the concept of prize money and various leagues based on gender and age groups.
In a private exchange, Dr. Zolman revealed his departure from the Rejuvenation Olympics. He attributed his choice to step away to concerns over the leaderboard's scientific integrity, stating, "Bryan and TruDiagnostic made the leaderboards unscientific and clinically meaningless."
On January 1, 2026, Bryan Johnson secured first place on the Rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard, while Michael Lustgarten, PhD ranked first on the Longevity World Cup leaderboard. This marked the first time different longevity competitions, using distinct biological aging clocks, simultaneously crowned clear category leaders—highlighting both the fragmentation and maturation of longevity as a competitive sport.
The inaugural Longevity World Cup concluded. The top 20 athletes by age reduction are listed below:
| Rank | Athlete | Age Reduction |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Lustgarten, PhD | -22.1 years |
| 2 | Zdenek Sipek | -20.6 years |
| 3 | Wen Z | -20.1 years |
| 4 | Philipp Schmeing | -19.6 years |
| 5 | Angela Buzzeo | -19.5 years |
| 6 | deelicious | -18.9 years |
| 7 | Juan Robalino | -18.3 years |
| 8 | Max | -18.3 years |
| 9 | anicca | -17.8 years |
| 10 | Ilhui | -17.7 years |
| 11 | Larsemann | -17.4 years |
| 12 | Lauren | -17.4 years |
| 13 | John | -17.4 years |
| 14 | Maria Olenina | -17.4 years |
| 15 | David X | -17.0 years |
| 16 | David Lo | -16.9 years |
| 17 | Julie Jiang | -16.8 years |
| 18 | QingqingZhuo | -16.7 years |
| 19 | Dave Pascoe | -16.6 years |
| 20 | Keith Blondin | -16.4 years |
Season 2 of the Longevity World Cup was released with major competition-format upgrades:
- The competition introduced two tracks: Amateur and Professional.
- A new aging clock was added for the Pro track: Bortz, while PhenoAge continued, shifting the competition into a multi-clock era.
- Athlete pages and the leaderboard began surfacing new derived performance views like pace of aging / pace rank.
- Entry evolved from an early “low-friction” model toward explicit pricing.
Similar competitions are also emerging, such as XPRIZE Health, the VO2 Max Leaderboard by JoinZero, and Favies (previously Goaly) and various fitness tracker-specific gamified leaderboards.