{"id":304648,"date":"2018-04-07T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-04-07T19:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=304648"},"modified":"2018-05-10T09:40:27","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T16:40:27","slug":"world-masters-spotlight-laura-val-darian-townsend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/world-masters-spotlight-laura-val-darian-townsend\/","title":{"rendered":"World Masters Spotlight: Laura Val & Darian Townsend"},"content":{"rendered":"

2017 Top 12 World Masters Swimmers of the Year<\/h2>\n

Sponsored by TriSwim <\/a>whose products remove chlorine, chlorine odor & salt water, and green tint.\u00a0 Their salon quality products hydrate & moisturize the skin, heal itchy skin & hair, relieve dandruff, eliminate pool rash & relieve symptoms of eczema.<\/em><\/p>\n

Swimming World Magazine<\/em>\u00a0has been recognizing the Top 12 World Masters Swimmers of the Year for the last 14 years. Running from April 2nd through April 7th the staff at\u00a0Swimming World<\/em>\u00a0will be shining a spotlight on the accomplishments of our Top 12 World Masters Swimmers of the Year.<\/p>\n

Laura Val, USA (65-69)<\/h3>\n

If there were such a thing as Masters swimming royalty, Laura Val would reign as queen. 2017 marks Val\u2019s 12th year as a World Masters Swimmer of the Year, and her times never underwhelm. Val manages a surgical team as a nurse by day, and by morning, she manages to swim an average of three miles or 5,000 yards.<\/p>\n

This year, Val set nine world records in the short course pool (eight events) and six in long course (five events). Val always shoots to make Swimming World\u2019s Top 12, but it never gets easier for her… because she typically has her own lofty records to tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting older in an age group usually means I have to break records I have already set,\u201d Val said. \u201cObviously, it gets harder every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Val attributes her consistent success to her genuine love of the sport and her training group of \u201cvery committed, dedicated, focused swimmers,\u201d whom she mentions are \u201call considerably younger than me.\u201d Val says her daily goal is \u201cto see how long I can keep from being ejected from the lane because I can\u2019t keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Val retired from swimming in the early \u201970s at the age of 21 because she thought she was \u201cold.\u201d It was the pre-Title IX era, and there wasn\u2019t a college swimming option for Val. So she stopped, but \u201cit was never because I wanted to quit swimming,\u201d Val said. \u201cI\u2019ve never experienced burnout.\u201d And if you page through the Masters world record books, you\u2019ll see Val is not lying. Her longevity in the sport is awe-inspiring, and her competitive fire has not dwindled with age. Here\u2019s how fast Val was able to go at the vivacious age of 65:<\/p>\n

In short course meters, Val crushed world marks in the 50-100- 400 freestyles (29.30, 1:06.39\/1:05.27, 5:02.08), 50-100-200 back (34.09, 1:14.99, 2:43.74), 100 y (1:15.40) and 100 IM (1:16.67). In an Olympic-sized pool, Val took down world records in the 100- 400-800 free (1:05.00, 5:20.83, 10:49.60) and the 50-100 back (34.71\/34.46, 1:15.66). Long live the queen.<\/p>\n

Darian Townsend, USA (30-34)<\/h3>\n

For the third time in his career, Darian Townsend has been named one of Swimming World\u2019s Top 12 World Masters Swimmers of the Year, having also been recognized in 2014 and 2016.<\/p>\n

This past season, Townsend set four short course Masters world records in the 100 y (52.44) and 100-200-400 IM (53.28, 1:56.96, 4:16.06).<\/p>\n

A three-time Olympian for South Africa, Townsend has enjoyed a storied career in the sport\u2014including being a member of the 4×100 freestyle relay that upset the USA for Olympic gold in 2004.<\/p>\n

As a Masters swimmer, he claims that he\u2019s still passionate about achieving his swimming goals\u2014\u201cand it\u2019s this passion that keeps me swimming: I love being in the water, and I enjoy pushing myself. Swimming is something I have done all my life. It has become part of my daily routine, so keeping myself active and still competing feels normal to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his workouts have changed some since his Olympic glory days, Townsend still pushes himself from week to week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI swim five days a week and do a gym workout twice. My training is a little shorter than I used to do, but I still manage around 3,500 yards a workout,\u201d he said. \u201cI spend a good amount of time working on technique as well as doing some hard kick sets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SBR-SwimmingWorld-0318\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2017 Top 12 World Masters Swimmers of the Year Sponsored by TriSwim whose products remove chlorine, chlorine odor & salt water, and green tint.\u00a0 Their salon quality products hydrate &<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":303330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,9,16],"tags":[67031,26255,3123,6176,64937,54417,59769],"class_list":["post-304648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-masters","category-swimming-world-magazine","tag-april-2018-issue","tag-darian-townsend","tag-laura-val","tag-masters-swimming","tag-sbr-sports","tag-swimming-world-magazine","tag-triswim"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nWorld Masters Spotlight: Laura Val & Darian Townsend - 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