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The setting is a neighborhood pool and a sunny afternoon. Alice Lord-Landon, 91 years old, stands at pool-side and contemplates the water temperature. There is no slow walk down the steps and into the water. Instead, she strikes a racing start and dives.
Former Olympians don't give up old habits easily.
"I still surprise people," the Flatbush native said from her Ormond Beach, Fla., home. "But for me, it's really the only way to go in."
Lord-Landon was a diver at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, and is the oldest world-record holder in women's swimming. Last month, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
In 1915, Lord-Landon's father, Theodore Lord, challenged his daughter to become the first female at age 13 to swim 7 1/2 miles across the Long Island Sound, from Nassau County to Westchester County. My father was talking about the swim and people told him they didn't believe I'd done it," Lord-Landon said. "So...