IN MORE than 30 years of competitive swimming, an octogenarian grandmother from the Isle of Wight continues to defy all the stereotypes of old age by becoming a European swimming champion.
Jenny Ball, of St John's Road, Newport, came first in the open water 3km swim at the 2018 European Masters Swimming Championships in Kranj, Slovenia, last week.
The 80-84 years category swim was held at Lake Bled on the final day of the nine-day competition.
Jenny, a swimming teacher at The Heights, Sandown, not only won gold, she came back to the Island from Eastern Europe with a clutch of medals.
The plucky pensioner also gained silver in the 800m freestyle and bronze medals in the 100m, 100m, backstroke, 200m and 400m events in her age group.
"I was more successful at this event than I ever dreamed I could be after swimming in masters championships for 30 years," said a delighted Jenny, who hails from Ipswich.
"All races were in the 50m open-air pool in a mixture of weather, which included very heavy rain and thunderstorms, although racing was paused during those."
Jenny already has an impressive resume of swimming accolades, which includes silver and bronze medals at the World and European Masters 3K Open Water Championships.
She has also notched up six Solent swims and competed in competitions the length and breadth of the country, which included the Great British Championships in Aberdeen in June 2016, where she won two golds, a silver and three bronze medals.
Jenny will be competing in the one-mile Swim Serpentine in Hyde Park, London, on Saturday morning, where she aims to raise over £300 for Macular Degeneration research and support.
Her busy season in the pool continues with the Swim England National Masters in Sheffield next month and, brimming with confidence, Jenny will feel she can add to her already burgeoning trophy cabinet.
Jenny, supported by Wightlink with free cross-Solent travel, has already competed in the Guernsey Masters, the Swim England Great Britain Masters in Plymouth and the Hampshire County Masters in Portsmouth earlier this summer.
Jenny, who has been competing in swimming events since the 1950s also, has also done open water training in Lanzarote and, as an Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) official, did timekeeping at the Royal Navy Masters in Somerset.
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