Mashonaland Senior Swimming Champs underway

AS SWIMMERS from Harare meet at Les Brown Swimming Pool for the Mashonaland Senior Championships, programme convener Mary Mankola says they are looking forward to another exciting competition.

The competition was scheduled to start late yesterday, with swimmers from six clubs — Spartans, Otters, Sharks, Dorados, Highlands and Pirates — participating.

The championships are running over two weekends and this weekend’s event ends tomorrow, before competition resumes next Friday for another three days. Mankola said they are excited about the event and are looking forward to new talent at senior level as some juniors graduate to the next level.

“So this is where our team to compete at national level will come from. And basically we have been having galas during the season from when we opened the season in September. We were having junior and senior galas and again the kids have been building up to the championships.

“This is running over two weekends. What I know for a fact is, it’s always exciting and it’s a competition. You have got kids that have moved on, especially the kids at the level of university, they have gone. So obviously you have got new seniors coming up. So that should be exciting and the younger ones trying to beat the seniors in time because swimming is all about time.

“You are racing against yourself in the water, that’s basically what the kids are doing, they are racing against times that they have set already during the season,” said Mankola.

With the competition being a preparatory event for the national championships to be staged in Harare early next year, swimmers will be pushing for better times to make the provincial team.

Mankola said they will be taking into consideration a number of factors during the selection process and that will have a huge impact .

“Again it’s not about numbers, it’s about capability. We have a team of selectors and these selectors come from each club, they will sit after the championships to select the team. So there will be a lot of factors that then determine how big our contingent is going to be,” Mankola said.

They have had several galas building up to this competition and Mankola said there is still room for improvement.

“They can always do better. In any sport, a sportsperson can always do better than their last best, that’s my personal thinking. I mean we have had records broken during the season in the short course especially, but the long course is harder.

with an away trip to Madagascar against CNaPS on Wednesday.

CAF have been regularly appointing the cast of local referees led by Norman Matemera, who have acquitted themselves well on continental duties.

Matemera will be the fourth official in a game to be handled by Nomore Musundire, assisted by Luckson Mhara, and Brighton Nyika. Musundire and his crew will take charge of the Champions League tie between Mamelodi Sundowns and Leones Vegetarians of Equatorial Guinea in Pretoria on December 5.

But it is Pilan Ncube, assisted by Edgar Rumeck, Tafadzwa Nkala and fourth official Musundire will get the ball rolling when they preside over the Confederation Cup preliminary round tie involving Tanzanian outfit Mtibwa Sugar and Northern Dynamos of Seychelles next Wednesday.

“The referees who are the ambassadors have embraced the call for doing well and we say to them do not relax into a comfort zone . . . continue to perform better and better.

“Those coming up the ranks should be spurred to emulate the good performance by those before them.