92-year-old Grandma Skydives in South Africa

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April 17, 2007
92-year-old Grandma Skydives
in South Africa

Johannesburg
For Georgina Harwood, the age of 92 years is not too old to take a plunge straight down 9,000 feet (2,700 meters).

The South African granny did this happily over the weekend to fulfil a promise to her grandchildren to go skydiving in Cape Town, a South African newspaper has reported.

"Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful," she was quoted as saying by The Star, after she and grandchildren Lynette, 28, and Johan, 24, went skydiving Sunday.

Harwood performed the feat while strapped to an instructor, and could be the oldest person to have skydived in South Africa, said the newspaper.

Skydivers in their 60s and 70s were fairly common, said Anton Schalabrino, a founding member of Skydive Cape Town, which operated the dive.

Jumpers in their 80s were rarer, but still popped up from time to time. Nonagenarians, however, were almost unheard of.

Schalabrino said Harwood was the oldest South African skydiver he or anyone at Skydive Cape Town was aware of. Before her, the record holder was a 90-year-old from Johannesburg.

The oldest skydiver in the world is a 101-year-old from Australia, who took the plunge in 2004.

Harwood's age wasn't a concern, Schalabrino said. "She was sprightly, she didn't even look like an old woman."

The newspaper said skydiving has been a long-time goal for Harwood. The 10-year-widow, mother-of-four and granny-of-14 keeps a full schedule -- swimming and playing tennis as well as competitive croquet in a relatively youthful under-80 team. She also teaches bridge.

The decision to finally take the leap cropped up during a family dinner, when granddaughter Lynette was complaining that since she was 21 her father - a skydiver for 40 years - kept reneging on a promise to take her for a jump.

Her father said her grandma could take her, and so granny did.

DPA | April 17, 2007

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