By Staff Reporter
PRETORIA, South Africa – Ten Namibian swimmers from Windhoek left a huge impact at the recently concluded Northern Tigers Provincial Swimming Championships, at Pretoria’s Hillcrest Swimming Pool last weekend.
The swimmers stroked their way past several heats before annexing 7 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze medal out of 22 finals.
The Namibians faced fierce competition from the strong South African Olympic squad that included seasoned swimmers in the mould of Suzaan van Biljon, Cameron v/d Burg, William Diering and Gerhard Zandberg.
Thirteen-year-old Tamara Siedentop stroked her way to the finals of both the 50m and 200m breaststroke to finish 6th and 8th respectively.
In the boys age group 14-15, Maritio van Wyk stroke 6 personal best times in all the categories he competed in while the 14-year-old Dean Spall was disqualified from the finals despite finishing 5th overall in the morning heats for the 200m backstroke as he was the 3rd out-of-province swimmer for the finals.
His team colleague, Jean Leitner (14) was more fortunate finishing 4th in the 200m backstroke heat in the finals to achieve 6th place and Ajad van Wyk (15) made went past the heats in two events with flying colours before finishing in 7th and 8th in the 200m individual medley and 100m butterfly.
Fifteen-year-old Tristan McDonald ended amongst the top eight in the 200m and 400m freestyle as well as in both the 100m and 200m backstroke categories.
The young McDonald pulled out all stops to take bronze in the 100m backstroke and gold medals in both the 400m freestyle and 200m backstroke.
The 16-year-old trio of Monique Marais, Joachim Leitner and Max Siedentopf were thrown into the lions’ den as they had to compete in the ‘open’ category, and despite the tough assignment, Leitner finished 10th in the 200m backstroke with Marais bettering her personal best time in the 400m freestyle finals by 4.35s to finish 6th overall.
One of the most exciting races in the pool was produced by Namibia’s 200m breaststroke swimmer, Max Siedentopf, when he gave South Africa’s and Junior African Champion Mathew Napier-Jameson a good run for his money.
The pair chased each other over four lengths, leaving their competitors lagging far behind as they kept the appreciative crowd at the edge of their seats for the better part of the race.
Upon touching, Siedentopf proved that he was destined for bigger things, after leaving Napier-Jameson for dead, and finishing an astonishing 2nd overall in the heats.
Unfortunately, the lack of international exposure took its toll on the young swimmer, who was 6th overall in the open finals.
In the men’s open 100m breaststroke event, Siedentopf’s faced stiff competition from South Africa’s Cameron van der Burg, who is currently ranked the fastest 100m breaststroke short course swimmer in the world and from William Diering, also amongst the world’s top 25 swimmers.
Nonetheless, Siedentopf swam into the finals before finishing in 8th place overall.
Both Tristan McDonald and Max Siedentopf achieved the qualifying times set by the Namibian Swimming Union for the 2nd FINA World Youth Championships, which take place in Mexico in July next year.
The highest accolades went to 11-year old Christine Briedenhann following her dominance in the pool in her age group, leaving all competitors chasing shadows. Briedenhann competed in seven events reaching the finals on all occasions.
She received silver medals for the 50m and 100m backstroke and won gold in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 50m breaststroke, 50m butterfly and 200m individual medley races.
Her extraordinary performance was of such high standard that she was awarded one of the highest honours: The Best Out Of Province Female Trophy at the end of the competition.