Salt Rock’s Joanna Dempsey took on some of the world’s best swimmers in sub-zero temperatures and iced almost all of them.

The 53-year-old masters swimmer recently competed in the International Ice Swimming Association World Championships in Molveno in northern Italy and brought home one bronze and three silver medals.

A relatively new sport on the world stage, ice swimming sees athletes race in water temperatures of 5°C or less. Five degrees would have seemed comparatively boiling during the World Champs from January 14 to 18 however, where the average water temperature was a freezing 1.3°C!

“It was so cold there in the Dolomite mountains that they had to use a pick axe to break the ice on the pool every morning,” said Joanna.

“Training in the local tidal pool with heat waves and high temperatures made things a challenge. Luckily I was able to acclimatise a little bit by having daily 3.5°C ice baths.”

Joanna’s previous competitive ice swimming experience – her World Champs qualifying swim – was in the Drakensberg last August. That swim was as close as one could get to proper training in sunny KwaZulu-Natal, but the World Champs was a different level in terms of both temperature and quality of competition.

“There were over 750 swimmers from 45 countries at the event, including some former Olympians,” she said.

“Our South African team of nine was one of the smallest there, but we managed an incredible 10th position on the medal table, even beating Great Britain who had 49 swimmers!”

Joanna certainly contributed her fair share of medals from the 50-55 age group, claiming three silver medals for backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle over 50 metres and a bronze for the backstroke over 100 metres. She is now back in warmer waters, but has become accustomed to regular cold dips.

“There are incredible health benefits that come along with ice baths and ice swimming, and there is a huge community of ice bath enthusiasts in our area.”

Perhaps Joanna’s story will prompt the next competitive ice swimmer from among the ranks. There are talks for the sport to be included in the Winter Olympics too, so expect it to grow in popularity going forward.

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