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A great-grandmother, age 95, is still breaking swimming world records — and the pictures alone demonstrate her remarkably fit physique and health routine.
Jane Asher recently achieved five age group world records, adding to her already 100-strong collection.
The swimming legend from Merton Park, South London, also has a British Empire Medal for her dedication to the sport. She’s in the International Swimming Hall of Fame as well, as news agency SWNS reported.
Looking back on her long career, which includes 26 gold medals, Asher said she credits her love of the water for her good health and long-lasting happiness.
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“It does keep you healthy,” she said. “I have taught people who just had surgery — and their doctors were amazed by how much they improved because of the swimming.”
Asher said she wants to “show people what a lot of fun you can have if you like competing and how good you feel when you work hard at something.”
She acknowledged that “quite a lot” of young people nowadays “have put on weight. Swimming doesn’t help you to lose weight, but it finds the muscles. … It opened a whole new world for me. It made me happy and healthy.”
Taught by her mother, then teaches others
Born in Zambia, in southern Africa, Asher spent most of her childhood in Johannesburg, she said, where her English mother taught her to swim. Her interest in swimming only grew at boarding school, where she was allowed to use the pool on her own in the mornings, mostly doing the backstroke.
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Today, Asher is a grandmother of 11 and a great-grandmother of six — and wherever she’s lived throughout her life, she’s always joined local swim teams, per the SWNS report.
“It opened a whole new world for me. It made me happy and healthy.”
Once she even joined a rowing club just to be in the water.
Asher married a vet named Robbie — and when he had an accident at work, she decided to get a job teaching swimming at the local school to help pay the family bills.
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She said her mother “was taught to swim in the sea in Cornwall and was addicted to water. We spent all of our free time just jumping in and out of the water. I took to it quite quickly.”
In Asher’s very first swim race, “a girl said that I kicked like hell. It was because my mother was watching. Now every time I have a backstroke race, I think, ‘Mom is up there watching.’”
After transitioning to teaching adults how to swim, Asher started entering swimming competitions when she was 50 years old. She broke 100 records by age 80.
The legendary swimmer broke her first European record at a 800m race in Crystal Palace — after a wedding where she’d had a few drinks.
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To this day, she competes in several different races, but said her favorite swim race is the individual medley, which involves backstroke, breaststroke, front crawl and butterfly.
Said Asher, “When my husband died, I started filling the time, but it was hard because there is this big hole in your life. But swimming has given me such good friends, and they give back to me. All of my kids are very sporty, and I am very proud of them, and I didn’t realize that they are proud of me.”
She noted, “Without friends, life doesn’t happen. There is always somebody pushing you on. I think that is what keeps me going — [knowing that] somebody [is] waiting for me.”
In terms of her health and wellness advice for the younger generation, Asher said she’d tell folks to keep active and swim wherever they can in order to be healthy.
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“It is a really good non-contact sport,” she said. “You can’t hurt yourself. Running hurts your knees and your hips, and even tennis causes shoulder problems. … I had a good kick with very strong legs.”
She also pointed out, “It is good to have something to think about. It is a bit like meditation. That is the secret, of course. You must not stiffen up, because then you go down like a stone.”
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Asher said she has no plans to slow down.
She’s currently working toward her next competition and another potential world record in Budapest, noted the SWNS report.
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