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Ellina Mhlanga Senior Sports Reporter
AS the swimming season gets underway, Zimbabwe Aquatic Union president Onismo Nhondova says they are anticipating an increased number of swimmers across all their provinces.
Some of the provinces such as Harare have begun their provincial activities while national competitions are expected to commence next month with the National Sprint Gala pencilled in for October 14 to 15 in Mutare.
The National Championships for senior and junior swimmers are scheduled for early next year.
Bulawayo will host the seniors and Harare will host the juniors.
Nhondova said they are hoping for an increased participation and more competitive competitions on the local scene as swimmers had more time to prepare for the new season unlike last year.
“Definitely, our hopes are very high this season in terms of increasing participation of athletes. Most of the activities were affected by Covid-19, you find that some places they never really took off last year.
“This season as we start, we hope we will have all provinces opening up their pools. We have provinces like Masvingo, Midlands and Manicaland. We hope these provinces, this year, will have more time to prepare their swimmers for the National Championships.
“We would also like our small provinces like Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South to increase the number of swimmers as well . . . Generally, we can see that things are normalising, so we have high hopes of increasing the numbers.
“Last year, you find that the level of competition was also low because you find that in most cases practice was hampered by Covid-19. Now we expect the level of competition to be higher because athletes had more time to prepare,” said Nhondova.
Manicaland fielded a small team in the previous National Championships held in Harare while Midlands and Masvingo did not take part.
Apart from local competition, local swimmers will be hoping to make the times for the usual South Africa Age Group Level Three and Level Two and the South Africa Junior National Age Group Championships.
There is also the African Union Sports Council Region Five Youth Games to be hosted by Malawi in December and the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) to be staged in Melbourne, Australia.
Indications are that Zimbabwe will field four swimmers at the championships.
The national association is also looking at improving other disciplines such as water polo.
“This year we would want to push for open water swimming . . . In terms of development it’s one area we would want to push.
“Swimming has established proper structures and we would want to mirror that to water polo as well, so that it can develop to the level of swimming, have competition and galas. So that’s one of the things we would also want to push.
“In terms of raising the competitiveness of our athletes, we have a number of swimmers outside Zimbabwe because also one setback we have in Zimbabwe is that we don’t have world class facilities.
“But the fact that we have a number of our swimmers outside the country, we will capitalise on that. Locally, we have been getting programmes to improve our athletes and it’s two-fold. We can improve athletes through coaching and good officiating. Officiating is also very integral part of development.
“So we have various courses being run by FINA and we have applied for some of them and they have been approved, some are yet to be approved. Very soon we will have an officials’ coaching clinic,” said Nhondova.
Provinces will also be hosting their provincial championships as part of the build-up to the national championships next year.
Midlands are scheduled to host their championships next month while Manicaland Championships are scheduled for November as well. Harare and Masvingo are to hold theirs in December.
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