Salt Rock’s Joanna Dempsey impresseses at World Masters Swimming Championships
With a bagful of medals in her trophy cabinet, Joanna looks forward to a well-deserved break from intense training.
Salt Rock’s Joanna Dempsey has become an international quality athlete since rediscovering her love for swimming.
Joanna (52) grew up swimming competitively and represented Natal, but had lapsed for years while living with her family in the United Kingdom.
But after returning to the North Coast in 2019, Joanna slowly found her way back into the water by way of her dog, Sam.
“I was walking Sam near the Salt Rock tidal pool every day and figured I might as well get some exercise in while I was there,” said Joanna.
“Soon I was swimming daily and really enjoying being in the water again.” She joined the Synergy Masters Swimming Club and started entering galas to see where she ranked, only to find her times were very competitive.
“By that time I was training properly, swimming around two kilometres per session, six times a week,” she said.
“The great thing about masters swimming though is that it caters to swimmers of all levels aged 25-100. I would encourage anyone who has an interest to join a club.”
After swimming a few local galas, Joanna’s first taste of international masters competition soon followed at the World Masters Championships in Japan last year.
It gave her an opportunity to gauge the level of competition and she was hungry to improve at this year’s event in Qatar in February.
“They’re meant to be two years apart but it ended up being just eight months because of Covid-19.
“So I was able to build momentum from Japan and roll it into this year’s event where I was much more competitive.”
She grabbed two top-10s, finishing 7th in the 50m backstroke and 10th in the 50m freestyle.
Joanna was soon back in the pool, competing at the South African Masters Championships at St Stithians in Johannesburg last week.
There she claimed podium finish after podium finish, earning four silvers (50m backstroke, 100m freestyle, 1km open water, individual medley relay) and two bronze medals (50m freestyle, 50m breaststroke).
“It has been a frenetic few months and I’ll be glad to get some time off from full training!”
But you will no doubt see her lapping the Salt Rock tidal pool soon enough, with Sam keeping her company from the sidelines of course.
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