Seasoned swimmer's quest for gold

Think of the world of competitive swimming, and you're probably imagining bright young things like Rebecca Adlington, lifting the coveted gold medal at last year's Olympic Games.

But Madeley-based IT consultant Stevan Eggleton, who tweets from @stevanegg, is one of a surprisingly large number of mature swimmers who are competing at national, European and even world champion level.

Stevan has been swimming competitively since his teens – he came sixth in the Moscow Olympic trials in 1980 and was ranked in the national top ten from 1979 to 1986 for distance and freestyle swimming.

"I was brought up in North Yorkshire and my parents taught me to swim very early on," says Stevan.

"I swam for my local club in Harrogate before coming to Birmingham to go to Aston university, and I moved to Telford a few years ago."

Now 49, he's returned to the sport after a 15 year break and is training with the Camp Hill Edwardians club in Kings Heath, as well as in Telford with his coach, Gerry Thain MBE, an 83-year-old former national team coach.

"I'm a lot bigger than I used to be, and it's harder to drag my old bones through the water!" he laughs. "But I'm better in water than I am on land."

This weekend, Stevan will be twittering live from the British Masters Swimming Championships in Sheffield, where he'll also be competing.

"As a keen sports fan, I like Twitter because it's just like being down the pub, watching your team and having live banter!"

Steven is hoping to improve his current ranking in the national top ten for the age group 45 to 49 this weekend, and get into the top six.

It's a gruelling, three-day competition covering eight events and two relays, and adult swimmers of all ages will be taking part.

"It'll be tough," says Stevan. !But there'll be copious amounts of beer drunk over the weekend, just to take away the pain!"

If Steven does well this weekend, he could go on to compete in the World Championships in Helsinki next year, although the cost is a prohibitive factor as Masters swimmers have to fund their own competitions.

But that doesn't deter some of the older swimmers from competing.

"Masters swimming in the UK is probably the best in the world at the moment, and there will probably be 80-year-olds setting world records this weekend."

Follow Stevan's tweets at twitter.com/stevanegg

By Lara Page