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A retired blind Paralympic swimmer and self-professed “daredevil” who loves “anything that involves speed” has learned to water-ski in her 40s, to ski at 50, and gone zip lining at 60.
Janice Burton MBE, 66, who lives with her 70-year-old husband Kevin in Cheadle, Staffordshire, gradually started losing her eyesight from the age of seven, leading to total blindness by the time she turned 21.
She said swimming was “always (her) first sporting love” and she initially took up the sport to stay fit in her early 20s – but within two years, she attended her first Paralympic Games in 1984, aged 26, and “got the gold”.
Janice competed at four Paralympic Games in total, attaining 23 medals – including five gold from New York in 1984, Seoul in 1988, and Barcelona in 1992 – before retiring in 1996, aged 38.
Even after retiring, however, Janice has been keen to find new challenges and has since gone water-skiing, skiing and zip lining, which she said was “like flying”, adding “It’s just lovely to feel the wind rushing past your ears.”
Janice now has her seventh guide dog called Peggy, who is her “pocket rocket” and best friend, and she said the charity Guide Dogs has helped her “live the best life (she) can” – and she is excited for her next adventure.
She told PA Real Life: “We’re trying to think of something to do for my 70th… probably something that involves speed.
“I would love to do a parachute jump, but I’m not sure Kevin will let me… anything that involves speed, I love speed.”
Janice explained that, during her early childhood, her eyes were “absolutely perfect”.
However, between the ages of seven and nine, she gradually lost the sight in her right eye due to Coats’ disease – a rare condition, affecting one in 100,000 people, which causes an abnormality of the blood vessels in the back of the eye.
Janice said becoming “completely blind” in one eye did not affect her day-to-day life – apart from during netball or tennis lessons, as she could not follow the ball – but the “biggest problem was bullying from other children”.
Her left eye remained unaffected until she turned 18 – when she married her husband Kevin, a photographer – but over the following three years, she lost her sight completely.
“The problem started with little flecks in my vision and then the flecks turned into blobs, and then gradually, just before I was 21, I’d lost all of the sight in both eyes, so I have no light perception at all now,” Janice said.
“It was a real tough time to begin with because I’d lived in a sighted world and depended on what little sight I’d got, so it was a real shock – but I’m of the opinion that you deal with what hand you’re dealt and you get on with it.”
Janice had to re-learn how to be mobile again and move around safely, and she was therefore trained with a long cane – but she said she “absolutely hated it”.
She said she was slow and she “bumped into everything”, making her “feel very blind”, but she later had the opportunity to walk with a trainee guide dog, which made her feel “so much more independent”.
“The freedom it gives you is amazing, and it just opened my world back up to me,” she said.
When she got her first guide dog at the age of 22 – a black Labrador called Lotti – she said it was “like somebody had put eyes in (her) hand” and she was able to navigate life confidently and easily again.
She started walking seven or eight miles every day with Lotti and took up swimming to stay fit – and this was the start of her journey to competing.
During training, she would use the lane ropes to guide her, but during competitions, she would “swim up the middle” and count her strokes.
Janice explained: “For every stroke – backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and crawl – they all have a different stroke count per length.
“So, you’re swimming up the pool and your brain is almost working out mathematically how far up you are and how tired you are, how much further you’ve got left to go.
“If you’ve zigzagged from side to side, you need to add on an extra stroke or two, so you’ve got calculations going on in your head all the time.”
Janice was soon asked to join the British blind swimming squad, and within 12 months she took part in her first Paralympic Games in 1984 in New York, where she attained her first gold medal.
She said competing at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games was a career highlight, as she felt “everything mirrored the able-bodied athletes” and there were thousands of spectators, while she came back with three gold medals and four silver.
In total, Janice competed in four Paralympic Games, attaining 23 medals, including five gold, but after winning her 65th international medal she felt it was the right time to retire in 1996, aged 38.
“I was sitting in the pool, waiting for the next event, and I was 20 years older than the next oldest competitor… my body was just telling me, it’s time to quit,” she said.
Janice’s retirement has not slowed her down, however – she swims regularly using her at-home Swim Spa and she is continually seeking new adventures.
Her love for horses led her to take up horse-riding, and she later embraced other sports, learning to water-ski in her 40s, ski at 50, and even go zip lining at 60 at Zip World in Wales.
Janice, who described herself as a “tomboy” and “daredevil”, said she loved water-skiing, and she learned to do this by having an instructor who water-skied on the outside of her to ensure she stayed safe.
When she learned to ski, she said she had “an amazing coach” who guided her down the mountains in Austria, calling out directions while they both held onto a six-foot long thin plastic rod.
“He held one end, and I held the other end, and once he got me standing upright, he basically was just saying left or right or really bumpy or plow, and we were just skiing side by side. I absolutely loved it,” she said.
Day-to-day, Janice said she uses a phone called BlindShell Classic 2, which is designed for the blind and visually impaired, and in her spare time, she enjoys cooking, baking, and knitting.
She would encourage anyone to “have a go at everything” and, although she is not sure what her next adventure will be, she hopes to one day complete a parachute jump, should Kevin allow her.
Janice said: “Everything in life is a challenge, but if it’s something that you really want to do, you’ll find a way around it.
“My biggest challenge at the moment is trying to learn to use a computer, a laptop, and I’m absolutely hopeless, but every now and then I keep having a little go, so eventually I’ll get there.”
To find out more about the services provided by Guide Dogs, visit: guidedogs.org.uk.
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