Former international swimmer Deirdre Hughes has beaten the best in the world in their own back yard last week, winning five gold medals in the New South Wales Masters State Championships in Australia.
Swimming her favoured backstroke and butterfly over the 25m distance she grew up in, Deirdre even added an almost superfluous silver to her haul at the short course championship in the national capital Canberra.
The Masters series is a graded competition up to the over 90s, and Deirdre competed in the 25-30 age category.
Deirdre (27 ) is the former lifeguard in the Mullingar town pool, who held three national titles in her career, and represented Ireland in both the European and World Championships in 2001 and 2002.
Deirdre was ranked in the top 30 in the world in both the 50m and 100m backstroke in 2002, and achieved the ‘B’ standard for the Athens Olympics in 2004, where she was just 0.02sec outside the ‘A’ standard before glandular fever ruined the dream.
Deirdre is the daughter of Anthony and Mairead, owners of the once iconic Corner House bar in Mullingar, and she moved to Australia earlier this year with her husband Skippy where she teaches swimming and works part-time at a local school.
