Jeffers brings home the gold from Senior Olympics

By Julia Boyle
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

With her goggles tight and her swimming cap snug on her head, Dolores Jeffers glides gracefully into the water. She pushes off the side, flutters her feet, and brings one arm, then the other over her head and back into the water.

“I consider myself something of a fish,” says the swimmer, who lives at Charlestown in Baltimore, Md.

At 84, Jeffers competed as the oldest woman athlete in this year’s Maryland Senior Olympics, held May 10-12 in Salisbury, Md. After training for three months in Charlestown’s aquatics center and the local YMCA, she walked away with gold medals in the 50- meter and 100-meter freestyle competitions.

Water bug
Delores Jeffers started swimming at age 13 and says she was always a “slow but steady” swimmer. Through the years, her love of the sport has seen her through a major injury and has become her fitness routine of choice.

“I love spending time in the water, and swimming is my only real form of exercise,” she says. “I think everybody has to stay in good physical condition. For me, swimming has made a huge difference.”

The Olympic champion swims for a half hour three days a week to train for the annual games. Before she and her husband Henry moved to Charlestown 14 years ago, she walked out her front door to the Severn River to practice her strokes.

Best time and place to swim
Now, she still enjoys walking from her front door to the water. “I’m glad we have such a nice pool here because it’s so little effort to just walk down the hall to swim,” she says.

Dolores Jeffers swims in the evenings at least two hours after dinner at one of Charlestown’s restaurants. “It’s not crowded because the aquatics classes are held during the day, and it gives me enough time for my stomach to settle,” she says.