Deborah has always been a breaststroker, competing at the South African Nationals three times as a teenager. In the absence of a university swim team, she dabbled with basketball, but she soon came back to swimming. Deborah originally joined Spencer in 2000, returning again when her daughter was 8. She trains on Mondays and Saturdays and loves breaststroke, kick and IM sets, but dreads the distance work – and don’t insist she goes in front of you in the lane and then sit on her toes! She won a silver medal in the 100m breaststroke at the European Masters Championships in Palma in 2001, and is currently targeting a PB at the Worlds in Budapest in August – for her, travelling to amazing places to compete and the friends she has made through the Club are an added bonus to keeping fit. Away from the pool, she has just completed a Masters which she combined with running her own business and being a single mum.
