Chronicle Editor
Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter
BULAWAYO Amateur Swimming Association’s (BASA) swimmers continued their impressive form in the pool after they put in good performances at the National Junior Championships which ended yesterday at Chisipite Senior School in Harare.
The competition started on Saturday and BASA swimmers such as 12-year-olds, Mbalenhle Jared and Siqokoqela Mphoko II were some of the star attractions in the penultimate gala of the 2023 junior season alongside 11-year-old Acacia Watson and Jamela Madonko in the boys’ Under-9 group.
Jared scooped gold in 50m freestyle, 100m individual medley (gold), 100m freestyle relay (gold), 50m breaststroke (silver), 50m butterfly (silver) and 100m medley relay (bronze).
Some of Mphoko’s medals came from the 50-metre backstroke (gold), 50m breaststroke (bronze), 100-metre individual medley (gold), 100m medley relay (gold), 50m butterfly (silver), 50m (freestyle) and 100m freestyle relay (gold).
Watson also scooped gold in the 11-year-old girls’ 50m butterfly and 50m backstroke before taking silver in the 100m freestyle relay among other achievements.
In the Under-12 section, Jared and Mphoko were the leading point getters in their age group as they topped the combined charts in position one and two with 44 and 41 points respectively. Madonko won the overall boys nine and under. With 31 points, BASA’s Alex Qiao was in position five in the combined 10-year-olds’ individual scores.
In the combined 11-year-olds’ section, Watson ended on position three with 34 points behind Harare’s Unathi Chibanda and Timukudze Musere, who had 43 and 46 points respectively. In third place in the 12-year-olds’ combined scores was Mashonaland Country Districts’ (MCD) Tassia Kaschula.
Harare, who provided the most swimmers, dominated the combined team scores with 1 186 while Bulawayo in second had a total of 595 followed by MCD with 432 and Masvingo on 30 points.
Matabeleland North finished in the bottom with four points. However, MCD had a better average than any other province as they finished on 11,37 followed by BASA on 14,51 and Harare on 16,47.
The aggregate score was calculated after dividing the combined score with that of the number of swimmers that a province had.
The event comes after Bulawayo hosted the Senior National Championships at City Pool where BASA swimmers also produced good results in a competition that had bad weather disrupting most of the proceedings. The five-day event was used to select teams that will represent Zimbabwe in the South Africa Senior Championships, South Africa Junior Championships and the Africa Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships. — @brandon_malvin
Sidumisile Mabena