Published: July 29, 2009 11:36 pm         

Golden girl

Tinsley, 87, will compete in three swimming events

After 40 years of instructing mostly youngsters to swim at the pool in her back yard, Jean Tinsley will be in a Palo Alto, Calif., this weekend swimming for gold medals.

Tinsley is scheduled to compete in at least three events — 50-meter breaststroke, 100 breaststroke and 50 freestyle — in the Summer National Senior Games at Stanford University.

“I’m actually signed up for four but I don’t think I’ll be swimming the 100 free,” the 87-year-old Tinsley said.

In fact, Tinsley’s daughter, Debby Ross, said her mother was somewhat reluctant to compete at all in the Senior Nation-als.

“After she qualified by winning three gold medals in the regional games in Atlanta,” Ross, who lives in Alexandria, Va., and works in Washington, D.C., said in a telephone interview Wednesday morning, “she said she probably wouldn’t go to the nationals because she thought everyone else would be much faster swimmers. I said, ‘No, you have to go. This is a fantastic opportunity.’”

With a little more arm twisting, Tinsley agreed to go and was scheduled to fly out of Atlanta this morning and meet her daughter in San Francisco. The two will then head to Palo Alto for the meet. Tinsley will “get in some practice” on Friday and the competition will be held Saturday and Sunday.

Ross, who said Tinsley began training seriously following a heart attack several years ago, is excited to make the trip to lend support for her mother.

“We’re all amazed she’s still this active at 87 years of age,” Ross said. “She had to swim a certain time at the regionals to qualify for the nationals. In California, she’s going to be near the upper limits of her 80-89 age group and that could be a disadvantage.

“But I think she’s going for the experience and I’m excited for her. I’m taking my video camera and we’ll have her on tape for the record.”

Swimming provides Tinsley, also an accomplished quilter and knitter who makes quilts and sweaters for children in third world countries, the chance to stay active in her every-day life.

Tinsley didn’t learn to swim until she was 15 years old, but spent much of her adult life instructing others to swim, she said. A couple of years after passing a water safety instructor class, Tinsley and her husband, who passed away several years ago, built a pool in the back yard of their Calhoun residence and she began teaching youngsters, mostly in the 3 to 5 age range, to swim.

“I never advertised,” said Tinsley, who moved to Dalton five years ago. “Word just got around.”

In her first competitive meet at the Georgia Senior Olympics last Sep-tember in Warner Robins, Tinsley captured three gold medals.

“I won primarily because there wasn’t much competition,” she said. “Because of those medals I was invited to the nationals in Palo Alto. Obviously, I’ve never been in a national competition like this before.”

Tinsley said Debby swims for fun, but another daughter, Cindy Dennerline, who now lives in Athens, swam competitively as a teenager. Tinsley’s son, Pete Tinsley, will be on the West Coast on business — he’s the executive director of the Association for Information Systems and lives in Indianapolis and works in Atlanta on the Georgia State University campus — and hopes to be in Palo Alto to watch his mother compete.

“It should be fun,” Jean Tinsley said.

� In addition to swimming, competition also will be held in archery, badminton, basketball, bowling, cycling, golf, horseshoes, race walk, racquetball, road race, shuffleboard, softball, table tennis, tennis, track and field, triathlon and volleyball.

To enter the Games, a competitor must be at least 50 years of age during the qualifying year (2008).

     

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