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Ellina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Swimming chairperson Zanele Nkomazana says the upcoming World Aquatic Championships presents an opportunity for their swimmers to push for Paris 2024 Olympic Games qualification.
The championships due to take place July 14 to 30 will see top international athletes competing in swimming, water polo, diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming and high diving.
Zimbabwe named their team this week and will be represented by Donata Katai, Paige Van Der Westhuizen, Denilson Cyprianos and Liam Davis in swimming.
The competition is also a qualifying event for the Olympics and if they fail to get the times, they can still earn points that will be key for the universality slots.
“So we have got two World Championships before Paris. We have got these ones then Doha in February (2024), that will be the last one before the Paris Olympics. So we are sending four swimmers now and we are sending another four for Doha.
“The World Championships are a qualifying event for the Olympics, they go there and compete. If they get the times, they qualify, if they don’t qualify those times they would have achieved would be used.
“If none of our swimmers get the time at the World Championships, we rank them on points. Then two swimmers with the highest points would go through to the Olympics, that’s a male swimmer and a female with the highest points. But they must have swum in Japan and Doha.
“But you can get qualification in any World Aquatics approved events. So if they fail in Japan it’s not the end . . . for instance South Africa can host a qualifying event and they can compete. Ghana is hosting the African Games, which can be a qualifying event.
“But regardless it’s still a must for us to swim in Japan and Doha . . . We do not want to end up with a swimmer with high points but fail to qualify because we did not swim in Japan and Doha. So we just want to make sure our swimmers compete at both events,” said Nkomazana.
Zimbabwe had two swimmers at the last Olympics — Katai and Peter Wetzlar, who were awarded the universality slots.
Nkomazana said they would want to see their swimmers getting the qualification times instead of just relying on universality slots.
“As an association I think we are at a time we cannot be sending swimmers (to the Olympics) on universality.
“We are pushing our swimmers to swim hard for qualification. It’s the easiest way to qualify . . . We are encouraging our swimmers to work hard and get even a B qualifying time,” said Nkomazana.
Katai is expected to compete in 50m and 100m backstroke while Van Der Westhuizen is up for 100m and 200m freestyle in the women’s section.
Davis is up for 200m breaststroke and Cyprianos is set to compete in 100m and 200m backstroke in the men’s category.
“Denilson has been taking time off, so we really would love to see what he will do in Japan. He is also swimming a double, Japan and China. So we are all interested in seeing what Denilson will achieve.
“Also Paige has been taking time off and she seems to be in form right now, so we expect good time from Paige.
“I know Liam has been working hard, he just came off camp right now. He has been swimming a lot of these World Championships. Donata also, she is still struggling to get to the Japan time (she set at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games), the 1:02.73 time, so it will be interesting to see if she gets closer or gets the time.
“But basically all four of them are working hard. They know what they have to do.”They are also set to send a team for the World University Games in China and the Junior World Championships in Israel.
The University Games are due to take place from July 28 to August 8 while the Junior World Championships are scheduled for September 4 to 9.
Online Reporter