In the swim Antonia Mitchell, an amazing 74-year-old resident of Candelaria, is an inspiration to us all.

Antonia on her balcony Tenerife Arico Finca to sell Small village in arico The plant consists of main house and a house for guests.Mounted a pool is prepared ... more details 15.07.2005 - This British born golden oldie started swimming regularly in her sixties and can now be seen every day working at her lengths in the municipal pool in Santa Cruz.  Since moving from Gran Canaria two years ago, she has regularly represented Tenerife and has already won numerous medals and trophies. Spanish long distance swimming champion, David Meca, sporadically trains and competes in these waters and Antonia is right there with him and all the rest, irrespective of age.  She is currently in training for three big competitions around the islands.  To get in top form she swims 4,000 metres five or six times a week which she will raise to 5,000 as the competitions come closer.  The first of the competitions coming up is the Lanzarote to La Graciosa crossing, in which around 450 people will compete, in the roughly three kilometre race at the end of September and the beginning of October.  Antonia has swum in this race almost every single year since its initiation in 1993 and is very much looking forward to competing. October will find Antonia taking on the longest of the three races, from Playa Blanca in Lanzarote to Corralejos in Fuerteventura.  Only 20 or 30 people dare to take part in this crossing which takes around five hours and is an incredible 14.5 kilometres of open sea swimming.  The not-to-be-daunted lady says she knows she won’t come first, though she never comes last either, so she can just relax and enjoy the swim. The third race is the notorious Lobos to Fuerteventura crossing of 3,400 metres.  The currents in this area are extremely strong and Antonia was advised that the event would be too arduous for her but, with her usual inimitable outlook on life, she simply said, “why? It’s only a matter of training”.  She competed and finished the crossing, despite the warnings and is looking forward to the challenge again. Last year she represented Tenerife in the Spanish Championships in her age group and came back with two gold and three silver medals.  She is also the record holder for the freestyle 800 metres in her class.  As a pensioner she can’t always afford to travel to away venues and she’s not always been able to compete in all the events she would have liked to. However, the island council president, Ricardo Melchior, rang her after coverage of her successes appeared in a Spanish newspaper and offered her sponsorship, something for which she is very grateful.  She is already preparing to compete in Sweden this year and is hoping to represent Tenerife in Canada in 2006. Antonia Mitchell was born in Sussex but has lived most of her life in Gran Canaria and Tenerife.  She spent the first four years of her life living on a yacht and then moved to the Canary Islands with her parents.  At 14 she returned to England to live with her grandparents where she later studied dance. After qualifying as a classical ballet teacher she returned to the islands and met the man who was to become her husband.  Antonia then dedicated many years of her life to looking after her husband and four children.  During this time she was also an official translator and worked for the British Consulate and a petroleum company, amongst others, but she never forgot her dream of having a dance school and, at 48, opened her own school in Gran Canaria.  The school became very popular and many of her ex-pupils are still going strong in the entertainment industry today.  The school was open for 12 years and, for ten of those, Antonia also had a school in Lanzarote.  Unfortunately she had to close her schools for various reasons and soon afterwards she took the incredible step of divorcing her husband of over 40 years.  Gaining her independence at 65 allowed Antonia to return to the other of her life’s loves – swimming.  She took the National Swimming Instructors qualification at 70 years old.  The rest of the class were in their 20s but, she says, once they had seen that she was of the same high standard they soon accepted her and were very supportive.  One of the amazing things is that Antonia has beaten cancer twice and recovered from a bad fall.  She is convinced that swimming is what keeps her healthy and recommends that everyone takes up a sport, “taking part in a sport makes you feel better physically and mentally, you meet people and learn to eat properly – it’s perfect” Antonia still has plenty of plans for the future – she has developed an exercise plan for the over 50s and would like to run classes to encourage people to stay fit in later life.  She would also like to become involved in sponsorship work, raising money for charity.  Antonia says she’s enjoying life more than ever, “I wake up every morning and realise I feel great” Antonia Mitchell is a lady who could teach us all a thing or two.

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