The torch is passed The torch is passed (November 30, 2001)

Former Olympic swimmer from Mountain View to carry torch in January

By Amy Goodpaster Strebe

For Susan Jones-Roy, the opportunity to carry the Olympic torch next year on its journey from Atlanta to Salt Lake City is a dream come true. A Mountain View resident, Jones-Roy is a former Olympian and a Masters champion swimmer with 45 years of experience in the pool.

Out of 210,000 nominees across the country, Jones-Roy became one of only 7,200 selected to carry the torch before the 2002 Winter Games after her 17-year-old son, Kevin, nominated his mother to bear the torch.

Jones-Roy said Kevin _ one of her four sons and a student at St. Francis High School _ sent Olympic organizers in Salt Lake City a 125-word essay explaining why he thought his mother should carry the torch.

The organizers responded by scheduling Jones-Roy to participate in a .2-mile leg of the torch relay Jan. 19 in Martinez. The relay will start in Atlanta and make its way across 46 states to Salt Lake City, covering more than 13,500 miles.

"I'm thrilled to be able to do it," said Jones-Roy. "I've been wanting to do this for awhile, and I know they like to acknowledge their Olympians," she said.

Jones-Roy swam in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, placing ninth in the 100-meter breast stroke. At 53, she still competes nationally in Masters swimming competitions, and currently holds five Masters world records and 15 national records.

Jones-Roy said she was a late bloomer, and didn't start swimming until she was 8-years-old due to a fear of the water. But by the age of 10 she was already swimming in competition. A native of Palo Alto, Jones-Roy trained at the Santa Clara Swim Club, which in the 1960s she said was the leading swim club in the U.S.

After graduating from Palo Alto High School, Jones-Roy went attended the University of Southern California before dropping out after two years to compete in the 1968 Summer Olympics.

"At age 20 I was the second oldest swimmer on the Olympic team," she said. "Nowadays a 20-year-old swimmer would seem young in comparison." By the time she competed in the Olympics, Jones-Roy had already set a world record in the 110-yard breast stroke in Vancouver, Canada in 1966.

"This was my first big accomplishment as a swimmer, and it encouraged me to stick with it and I made my goal to compete in the Olympics," she said. Jones-Roy said she came close to making the 1964 Olympic team, but "didn't swim the right race at the right time."

After graduating from UCLA in 1972 with a degree in political science, Jones-Roy returned to the Bay Area and to swimming. For the past 30 years she has coached and taught the sport to young people. Today she teaches private swim lessons in Los Altos, and in the winter she teaches at a swim club in Palo Alto.

"Swimming is a very demanding sport, and you really have to love it to stick with it," she said.

On Dec. 8-9 Jones-Roy will compete in a Masters swim meet in Long Beach, CA, where she hopes to set another record in the breast stroke. She said it's often not age that slows her down, but injuries that take longer to heal. "It's really a balancing act," she said. "Trying to push yourself without going too far. It takes a lot of patience and humility." Jones-Roy swims six days a week for one hour and 15 minutes, and also works out with weights.

As Olympic liaison for Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee that is working to bring the 2012 Summer Olympic Games to the Bay Area, Jones-Roy sees hosting the Olympics locally as an opportunity too good to pass up.

"We have so much to offer as an Olympic city," she said. "It's an opportunity for the city to improve its transportation system, its housing situation, and what a gift it will be to our city's children."

Jones-Roy said she enjoys speaking to young people at schools and hopes to inspire them to follow their dreams. "I encourage them to find a passion __ something that excites them in their life," she said. "When they start setting goals, dreams happen. Olympians come in all shapes and sizes, and it all starts with a dream in your heart."