The Link

7/10/2012
IOWA SPORTS FOUNDATION

Age Not a Factor for Iowa Games Swimmer

AMES, Iowa - For one athlete at the 2012 Summer Iowa Games age is not holding her back. Kay Munsen of Story City celebrated her ninety first birthday on July 4. As a competitor in the masters swimming event on Sunday, July 15 at the Ames High School Pool, Munsen will be swimming in the 100 meter and 500 meter freestyle as well as the 100 meter breaststroke.

"My parents signed me up for swimming lessons at the age of three at Lake Comar south of Story City," commented Munsen. "I am very fortunate as many girls in the 1920s did not get the opportunity to takes lessons."

As the Lake Comar high school swim team mascot at the age of five, Munsen became interested in competing as she looked up to these older swimmers. She was very inspired and this has kept her swimming all these years. From a historical perspective she has swam through sixteen United States presidents, the Great Depression, five wars, the invention of color television, the computer and internet.

She credits her parents, the owners and instructors at Lake Comar for teaching allowing her to swim. Munsen has been swimming for eighty-eight years and began swimming in the Iowa Games when she was in her eighties. Last year she suffered a fractured vertebra which prevented her from competing in the Iowa Games. Following her injury she used swimming as rehabilitation and feels swimming is a sport individuals can do for a lifetime.

Although she is the only swimmer in her age division, three other swimmers over the age of seventy will be competing. These athletes include: Glenda Sharp, 76, Cedar Rapids; Daryl Robers, 75, Independence; and John Beamer, 72, Des Moines.

To learn more about masters swimming and other sports of the Iowa Games powered by the Iowa Food & Family Project, visit www.IOWAGAMES.org.

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The Iowa Sports Foundation is a nonprofit sports management organization that helps develop amateur sports in Iowa and promote positive lifestyles and physical fitness through athletic events and health education initiatives.

(Contact: Cory Kennedy, Marketing & Communications Director,cory@iowasportsfoundation.org,888-777-8881 ext. 106)