74-year-old sets a national record
Geraldine Janssens (74) typically swims up to three kilometres, six days a week.
At her age that kind of workout is noteworthy.
Even more so is the fact that Janssens, who lives in Mataffin Macadamia Village, swam a gold medal in the category 70 to 75 age group at the recent South African Masters National Swimming Champs in Pretoria.
She broke the 200-metre backstroke national record by four seconds.
Janssens was born in London and has been living in South Africa for 24 years. She was a keen swimmer in her youth and competed in two international events for Britain.
At the age of 22 she decided to stop as “it was time”. And now 52 years later, she is back in the water.
She met her husband, Mark, in 1985 through a group of friends. They have been travelling all around Mpumalanga.
They ran a trout farm in Dullstroom whereafter they bought an even larger trout farm in Machadodorp.
After that they built a house in a wildlife estate in Barberton. The couple has been living in Macadamia for four years.
Their neighbours invited them to join parkrun. Janssens, however, hurt her ankle and as she doesn’t do gardening, knit or bake, she had to get a new hobby.
“At the end of October I became a member at Virgin Active. As I got into the water, I suddenly realised how much I have missed it.”
She looked at the qualifying times for the nationals and said to herself, “I am going to do it”.
“I joined Fins Swimming Club. In order to qualify for the nationals, I had to compete in the Mpumalanga open in November. I had to swim with 17-year-old Chad le Clos lookalikes.”
At the nationals, she entered for the 50- and 100-metre backstroke events, but leading up to the 200-metre backstroke, she was afraid she would be too burned out.
“I do regret that I didn’t push through. My times were faster than the winner’s time. I could have returned with three gold medals,” she said with a smile.
At the recent Fins awards evening she was presented with the masters swimmer of the year trophy.
End of July next year, she will be representing South Africa at the World Master Swimming Champs in South Korea.
