Lakewood Resident Wins Five Gold Medals In Senior Games
Lakewood resident Dave Lange has returned home with gold medals in all five of his events from the New Hampshire Senior Games swimming competition held at Colby-Sawyer College in New London. His victories in the 75-to-79-year-old age group 50-, 100- and 200-yard breaststroke, 100-yard individual medley and 500-yard freestyle events qualify him for the 2025 National Senior Games next summer in Des Moines, Iowa.
“I ended up in New Hampshire this year after the belated scheduling of the Ohio Senior Olympics conflicted with my previously reserved family vacation in Myrtle Beach,” Lange said. “My wife, Linda, and I regularly visit great friends at a mountain lake in northern Massachusetts each summer, and the New Hampshire swimming competition just happened to be held nearby on July 20. Our friends like to visit us here in Lakewood in the fall.”
​Lange’s swimming days date back to his childhood in Cuyahoga Falls as a member of the Water Works Swim Club AAU team. Among his best memories, he said, were the big swim meets in the Olympic-sized pool at Lakewood Park in the 1960s. “I think about that every time we take our 6-year-old grandson to the playground there,” he said.
​His swimming experiences essentially have taken him around the world. In 1968, his butterfly leg led his boot-camp company medley relay to first place at the Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois. During his riverine support service in Vietnam the following year, Lange completed a 500-yard swim in the hazardous Nha Be River. While on his R-and-R leave to Thailand that year, he had the pleasure of swimming and water-skiing in the Gulf of Siam.
​While on his next duty assignment onboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, he took a plunge in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. He also led the Intrepid swim team with his second-place 100-meter-breaststroke finish in Bergen, Norway.
​While his swimming sons were growing up, Lange was an assistant coach with the Lake Erie Silver Dolphins for several years and coached the swim teams at Kenston High School for seven years, including as head coach in 2006-07.
​In 2014, Lange won four gold medals and one silver medal in the Ohio Senior Olympics, which earned him a trip to the National Senior Games in Minneapolis the following year. His top national finishes in the 65-to-69-year-old age group there were fifth place in the 200-yard and eighth place in the 100-yard breaststroke events.
​Competing in the 70-to-74-year-old age group, he also took five gold medals in the 2021 Ohio Senior Olympics.
​“Unlike the days of our youth,” Lange said, “our times as seniors don’t get faster each year, and the competition isn’t so fierce. I hope to step up on the podium more than twice next year in Iowa.”