Master swimmers win gold and silver
Wendy Saunders won six gold and Jim Saunders won two gold and four silver medals in the SA Masters Championships in Durban recently.
WESTVILLE residents and aspiring swimmers, Jim and Wendy Saunders, acquired an impressive collection of gold and silver medals in the SA Masters’ Championships in Durban two weeks ago.
Wendy (81) won six gold medals in the 50m backstroke, 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke, while Jim (79) won two gold medals in the 100m freestyle and 50m backstroke and four silver medals in 50m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 200m backstroke.
Jim started swimming when he was 10 years old, just after WWII in 1945, and Wendy seven years ago in 2009. Wendy said she met Jim when he was a swimmer and she wasn’t. “I was so impressed with his swimming that I married him,” laughed Wendy.
Jim said he never swam competitively for 48 years until someone asked him to join Masters, but he thought it was the ‘Boy Scouts’. He then joined a swimming club on the East Coast. Jim swam for three provinces – Transvaal schools and Eastern Transvaal seniors in his youth, and now KZN Masters.
Both Jim and Wendy now swim at East Coast Masters Swim Club in Durban.
“East Coast Club is a wonderful, friendly and well-organised swim club, which ran the entire SA Masters’ Championships in Durban on their own this year, and it was a huge success. We are very happy to be associated with them,” said Wendy and Jim.
