Teens join Olympians in action at KZN swimming champs
A BUNCH of teenagers join three international-level swimmers to contest the 2016 KZN Speedo Provincial swimming championships at the Kings Park pool in Durban from Tuesday to Saturday.
More than 400 swimmers from 44 clubs across the country have submitted 3 072 entries for the event. The provincial championships are an open competition for swimmers 16 years and older.
The two Olympians, both from Rio 2016, to swim in Durban are national champions Calvyn Justus, 20, 100m freestyle, and Matthew Meyer, 18, 1 500m freestyle.
Justus is pencilled in for the 100m and 200m freestyle, as well as the 100m backstroke events. Meyer has entered the 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1 500m freestyle events.
The other international in the field is Ayrton Sweeney, 23, who swam at the 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia. He is on the list to compete in the 200m and 400 individual medleys, 100m and 200m breaststrokes, and both the 200m butterfly and backstroke events.
A number of promising 16-year old swimmers join the open ranks for the first time this year. Among them are national and provincial age-group record-setters Luke Erwee, Tiago Cordeiro and Reece Kincaid.
Justus and Sweeney are from the powerful Seagulls swim club in Pinetown, which submitted the most entries, 687 from 84 swimmers. That is more that double that of Seals, Pietermaritzburg, which is the next club with 36 swimmers and 250 entries. Action swim club based at Kings Park pool, has the third most with 30 swimmers and 247 entries.
Aquazone, Hillcrest, has 29 swimmers, followed by Westville, and Beavers from Queensburgh, with 21 swimmers each.
Age groups are catered for at the provincial champion- ships. There are three age groups: 14-15, 12-13 and 11 and under. These swimmers make up the bulk of the entries.
There is an added incentive for age-group swimmers with the launch of “Project 2022”. This is a programme in KZN designed to prepare and support a squad of swimmers to qualify and medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Durban.