Swimmer ready for challenge
2008-06-12
Sieb Sieberhagen
THE future holds even more promise for Paarl master swimmer, Therese Sharkey, after this year’s World Masters Swimming Championship. For the next championship in 2010 in Sweden, she will be one of the “younger” participants in her age group. Sharkey is the first swimmer of the Winelands Club to compete in the world championships. She competed in the freestyle and backstroke events and won three medals in all three her backstroke events. She earned a 10th place (3,12) in the 200m, a 10th place (1,29) in the 100m and a 9th place in the 50m (40,6). “Competitors in the masters competition must be older than 25 and some of the swimmers are 90 years old. Swimmers compete in different age intervals of 5 years,” she explained. “I will compete as a youngster if I qualified for the next world championship. I will be a 55-year-old swimmer in the 55-59 age group.” Sharkey joined the Winelands Masters swimming club in 2000 and since then participated in every year’s national championship. She has been training under guidance of local coach, Isaac Kock. “It is not too difficult to qualify for the world champs, but it is still up to you to get good results. “It is amazing to see the swimmers at the world championships. Some of the older swimmers cannot even walk properly, but are eager participants,” she says. She started her swimming career at school when she swam for Western and Eastern Transvaal. After that she did not compete seriously and only became involved when the Winelands Masters Club was founded.
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