SUBMITTED PHOTO
Michele David Roll poses with her four medals, three gold and one silver, from the Alberta 55+ Games at Brooks last weekend.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Michele David Roll is no stranger to winning medals.
The Medicine Hat swimmer came away from the Alberta 55 Plus Games last weekend at Brooks with four medals from her efforts in the swimming lanes. She won gold in 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 100m breaststroke and took silver in the 50m freestyle.
She was happy with her times in the gold medal-winning race and says she felt one second slower in the 50m freestyle, before ultimate finishing 53 milliseconds behind the first place winner.
“That’s how it is, you can be hundreds of a second behind in all kinds of sports but it was fun,” David Roll said. “It’s always exciting, I’ve swam ever since I was a little kid but it doesn’t get old.”
Last weekend marked the second time the 63-year-old swimmer has competed at the 55 Plus Games, having swam at the ones held in Medicine Hat in 2019. Last year she swam at the qualifiers at Peace River and competed at the Canada Games in Kamloops, winning four gold medals at each event, for eight total.
She hasn’t decided if she will be travelling to Quebec City next year for the Canada Games but is said if she does go, it will be to swim in four races, not just one.
“I haven’t decided yet, that’s another year away, so we’ll just kind of see how things go and maybe we’ll use it as an excuse for a holiday,” David Roll said.
She has swam her entire life, competing for the Alberta Marlin Aquatic Club when she was a kid and spent the 40 years between in and out of the water. David Roll says the water has provided a safe spot for her as she finds it harder to get injured in the water compared to other sports she’s competed in where injuries have piled up.
“Injuries from other sports kind of forced me back in the water, you’re pretty safe in the water,” David Roll said. “Although you can still get sore, depending on what you’re doing, but it’s been a safe spot for me.”
The Alberta 55 Plus Games features three age classes, 55+, 65+ and 75+, across fifteen sports, including swimming, slopitch, corn hole, golf, horseshoes and more. David Roll says she’s enjoyed competing at the 55 Plus Games because it’s more her speed and is more accessible as competitors continue to age.
“There’s masters swimming as well and it’s from 35 years up, and a lot of those people, they are so fast,” David Roll said. “I’m sure they’re excellent, former olympians or something because some of them are super fast. I’ve looked at some previous times, some of their swim meets and there’s a couple of events I might fit in. But they’re really fast, so the 55 slots is more my speed, people my level.”
She mixes up her training locations between the Big Marble Go Centre and Crestwood Pool, depending on how much time she has in the day and has included more outdoor swimming this summer to enjoy the sun on her lighter workout days.
“It depends on how much time I have because the Big Marble Go Centre is up on Crescent Heights and they have a hot tub, so when you go there you have to stop in the hot tub and it takes about another hour,” David Roll joked.
“I’ve done a little bit of swimming outside just because you can, but I find I get a better training session indoors than I do outdoors. But the outdoors just feels nice, so I do my more restful workout days outside.”
She still cross trains as well to continue getting stronger, mixing between weight training, stretching and taking her bike up hills.
“It’s a lot of hard work, swimming is a commitment,” David Roll said. “You have to go, even if you don’t feel like it, even when it’s cold. It’s hard sometimes to get motivated to go but once you do it, then you feel pretty good.”
