Ellery McGowan Is All Smiles In New York
Although the official results of yesterday’s Manhattan Island Marathon Swim have yet to be announced, the teammates and swimmers from Surrey, United Kingdom were ecstatic yesterday with the swim by Ellery McGowan, the oldest person in the 28.5-mile circumnavigation of Manhattan Island.
The native of Tasmania who is now working in Surrey as a head swimming coach is 66 years and is making up for time with her recent swimming exploits.
She has been on a tear over the last few years.
After raising 3 children and obtaining her coaching qualifications at the prestigious Australian Institute of Sport, McGowan is now the Head of Swimming and Water Polo at Charterhouse School, a boys’s boarding school. But she is doing everything in the sport of open water swimming, from ice swims and relay swims to marathon swims and nearly everything in between.
She won four age-group titles in the 25m and 50m freestyle at the 2010 and 2012 World Winter Swimming Championships in Slovenia and Latvia, respectively. At the age of 64, McGowan was the oldest woman to complete the 26.4 km International Self-Transcendence Marathon-Schwimmen in 2010 (11 hours 35 minutes). She also completed the 10 km Eton Swim and the 17.5-mile Ederle Swim in New York in 2012 (6 hours 18 minutes) and was part of the 5-person Guildford Lido Legends relay team that crossed the English Channel and two additional English Channel relays including leading the 5-person Swinging Sixties team (average age 66 years) that crossed in 13 hours 59 minutes. And interspersed between these marathon swims and channel swims and work responsibilities, McGowan has squeezed in the 2 km Lee Swim, the 3.8 km Seahorse Swim, the 3.8 km River Arun, and the 2.3-mile Hampton Court Swim.
All her exploits are most definitely something to smile about.
Copyright © 2013 by Open Water Swimming
