her race , she would have become the oldest women to compete in a cross-country skiing race at the Winter Olympics , surpassing Norway 's Hilde Gjermundshaug Pedersen who competed as a 41-year-old at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin , Italy .
She competedolympics.olympic_medal_honorwomen 's individual foil at the 1948 London Olympics , the 1952 Helsinki Olympics , the 1956 Melbourne Olympics , the 1960 Rome Olympics , the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the 1968 Mexico City Olympics — the first woman to compete in six Olympics , a feat matched four years later by Romanian discus thrower Lia Manoliu and finally surpassed in 1988 by fellow fencer , Sweden 's Kerstin Palm .