NINETY-two-year-old McCrae resident, Wilma Watt, has taken home gold in four swimming categories at the Australian Masters Games in Canberra.
Watt and two of her daughters made the road trip up to the competition, which took place at the AIS Aquatic Centre from 18 – 25 October.
Watt won gold in the 25m and 50m breaststroke and the 25m and 50m backstroke events in the 90-93 age category, an achievement that came as a surprise even to her family.
“I didn’t know how she’d gone and when she rang, I said, ‘I suppose you’ve got gold, gold, gold’, just joking,” her daughter Trudy Clarke said. “And she said, ‘no, gold, gold, gold, gold’, and I nearly fell off my seat.”
Despite not training extensively for the competition, Watt was “over-the-moon” with her results.
“She must have signed on the dotted line without thinking about it too much, so she wasn’t greatly prepared,” Clarke said. “She just thought it was great that she still had it had it in her to be able to do it.”
Watt’s connection to swimming goes back to her youth, when she would swim in the Yarra River with Abbotsford Swimming Club, before moving into coaching in the 1970s.
After having four children, she returned to work as a physical education teacher, a role she held for over 25 years.
She is described by her daughter as “incredibly inspirational” and continues to live independently, spending her days tending to her impressive garden.
“She wakes up with a smile every day. She’s got a really great, happy disposition, and she’s very caring and would help anybody,” Clarke said. “She’d open her door to anybody and give them a cup of tea. And a bunch of flowers and anything else out of her garden.”
If you ask her what her secret is, she’ll answer “three Weetabix a day”.
Although Clarke believes this may have been her mother’s “last hurrah” in competitive swimming, she said “never say never”.
First published in the Mornington News – 4 November 2025
