04 Apr 2018

Confederation Africaine De Natation Amateur (CANA) Zone IV swimming championships came to an end with Botswana moving one place from position six to five after winning 30 medals, nine gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze.

Michelle Jack scooped best female overall performer for the 12 years and under category. The event, which was held in Lilongwe, Malawi, on March 21-25 saw Zambia and South Africa dominating the competitions by winning 82 and 55 medals respectively.

Botswana scored 944 points moving one slot up from position six last year to position five. The country had 16 participants, eight boys and eight girls.

The team manager, Matshelo Radimo said local swimmers, who were placed in the top 8, scored many points hence improving in places.

“Michelle Jack, Andile Bekker, Kimberly Ingwe, Maxine Egner and Ethian Fischer are athletes who contributed to Botswana’s points improvements, including the number of medals won,” he said.

He said despite having less participants due to financial constrains the team did well.

Events competed on were freestyle, butterfly, back stroke, breast stroke and individual medley with distances of 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m. Participation was for the age category 19 and below.

Radimo said the team performed well, adding that if it was not for the financial challenges the association could have sent more swimmers for a better performance.

Regarding the upcoming competition to be hosted by Namibia, Radimo said they expected a much better performance, adding that hopefully sponsors would meet them half way.

Giving a commentary on the criteria used to select the athletes, he said due to a lot of outstanding swimmers the association decided to pick the best by looking at their times and those who were breaking records.

In terms of hosting, Radimo noted that CANA chose randomly the host country and made a calendar of events which would be followed in a year.

The swimming competition that Botswana hosted in 2011 would be hosted again by the country in 2020. ENDS