Foreign-based swimmers boost for Team Zim

Fungai Muderere Sports Reporter
TEAM Zimbabwe swimming has received a major boost after the South African based duo of Roxanne Brown and Kaleign Graham joined camp ahead of the start of the African Union Sporting Council (AUSC) Region 5 Games swimming contest tomorrow. The team has been conducting their workouts at the Games Village but yesterday held their session at the competition venue.

“We’re happy that our South Africa based swimmers Brown and Graham are already here. Everyone is upbeat and excited to get into the pool on Wednesday (tomorrow). We’ve had a lot of preparatory time and the team has gelled well together considering that we’d to put together our squad from four provinces,” said Team Zimbabwe swimming manager Tracey Doorman soon after the swimmers’ first workout at Bulawayo Pool.

She said the other medal hopefuls, James Lawson Peter Wetzlar, Robyn Lee and Chad Idensoh who recently represented Zimbabwe in Doha, Qatar for the FINA World Swimming Championships are expected in the country today.

Also expected to arrive today are Liam Davis and Ratidzo Mutangadura who had attended a youth swimming programme in the same country.

“The swimmers need support. Just like the other country’s representatives, they thrive on support because they need to be encouraged. Our team seems to like this pool (Bulawayo Pool). It has a fast pool and we believe we’re going to do well,” said Doorman.

Lee is based in Australia, Idensohn and Wetzlar train in South Africa while former St George’s College student Lawson is the only member of the senior team based in Zimbabwe.

All four are training with their eyes set on the Rio 2016 Olympics. Idensohn and Lawson are both recipients of Olympic Solidarity Scholarships. Lawson will take part in three breaststroke events, 50m, 100m and 200m and is seeded number 10 in the men’s 100m Breaststroke out of 101 entries.

Idensohn is seeded first in the men’s 50m Freestyle with a time of 22.42 seconds in a field of 175 swimmers.

Idensohn will also compete in the 100m backstroke, 50m backstroke, 50m butterfly and 100m freestlye.