Mashonaland dominate junior swimming championships

The competition catered for swimmers between the ages of eight and 11 with participants taking part in 33-yard, 66-yard and 132-yard backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle, individual medley, medley relay and freestyle relays.
The hosts finished on top with 1 119 points as their swimmers dominated most of the events with 10-year-old Hollie Stander breaking the two lengths national record when she posted a time of 40.54 seconds. Samantha Welch previously held the record at 40.94 seconds.

Mashonaland girls’ relay team made up of Gemma Schonken, Megan Kadzirange, Amu Valela and Nomvula Mjimba set a new national record of 1.26.16 minute in the 132-yard freestyle. The previous record was 1.27.27minutes.
Matabeleland junior team came second with 663 points while Mashonaland Country Districts amassed 397 points to come third. Midlands had 31 points while Manicaland had 11 points to finish fourth and fifth respectively.

In the individual rankings for boys, Bruce Dale from Matabeleland was ranked first with 46 points while Mashonaland’s Tori Goldsmith amassed 48 points to finish on top in the girls’ category.
For the boys 10-year-olds Bruce Chiang from Mashonaland had 48 points to finish on top and in the girls’ category Stander was ranked first with 40 points.

Denilson Cypranos of Matabeleland and Mjimba from Mashonaland clinched first position in the nine-year-olds boys’ and girls’ section respectively.
In the eight and under boys, Mashonaland’s Chiang finished on top of the rankings with 30 points                               while Mashonaland Districts’ Paige Van Der Westhuizen managed 34 points to take first position in the girls’   rankings.

Zimbabwe aquatic union president Marry Kloppers was impressed with the competition.
“The competition was very good. We certainly have              good up-and-coming swimmers like Hollie Stander. We                   had a very good final competition of the season for the juniors.

“The organisation was extremely well and I was impressed,” said Kloppers.
Kloppers attributed the dominance of Mashonaland to the large of pool of swimmers they have.

“Mashonaland have been the defending champions for more than 10 years and it’s a long time. Harare has the biggest pool to choose from, they have many more pools than other provinces,” said Kloppers.
The juniors’ season will take a break and resume in September.