Three years later, the 89-year-old was making headlines in her local newspaper after placing seventh in the sport for her age group at the National Senior Games in Pittsburgh, Pa.Williams began playing as a way to stay active, after the fitness center at her senior living center in Lancaster, Pa. shut down due to Covid restrictions in 2020. She had heard table tennis was a good way to keep your brain healthy.
Not that she wasn’t up to the challenge — the octogenarian had developed a keen interest in keeping her mind active by any means necessary, after watching her mother-in-law suffer from Alzheimers years earlier.Seeing what the disease did to her loved one encouraged her to enroll in an Alzheimer’s research study at Johns Hopkins University, back in 2007.
Gold medaling at the Senior Games last summer — “It was thrilling to play my heart out for hours on end with such terrific players,” Williams recalled — didn’t happen by accident.In addition to playing the actual sport, there’s a whole list of other activities that help her stay in fighting shape — walking up to 45 minutes daily, exercising on the rowing machine at the gym, lifting, squats, and her other love, tap dancing, five mornings a week.