WINDHOEK – Several records tumbled during the final and decisive 3rd leg of the Bank Windhoek gala at the Olympia municipal pool last weekend.
Although the water temperature was 19 degrees, close to 100 swimmers braved the conditions to produce some awesome splashes.
Corné le Roux, 12, Heleni Stergiadis and Joanne Liebenberg (all from Dolphins Swimming Club) broke five records between them. Heleni and Joanne opened the gala with records in the opening event, the 800m freestyle.
Heleni broke her own national 12 and under record by improving her old record of 10:45.36 with more than 24 seconds with a new time of 10:20.75. She went on to improve in the last event of the day, the girls 12 and under 400m individual medley, with a new time of 5:41.00 shattering her old record of 5:51.54 in the process.
Corné le Roux showed that he is an excellent butterfly swimmer when he broke the long standing boys 11/12 100m butterfly record of Ricardo Eerenstein of 1:11.77 setting a new record of 1:11.48. Corné also started off the gala with a good swim in the 800m freestyle that saw him breaking the old record of 19:35.16, with a new time of 19:29.53.
Joanne Liebenberg, now a South African citizen, broke her old Namibia Swimming Union (NASU) record of 10:31.08 for the 800m freestyle with a new time of 10:20.46.
Philip Seidler (16) of Dolphins had the best swim of the day when he scored 590 Fina points for his effort in the 400m freestyle, with a time of 4:22.26.
Sixteen-year-old Nicolai Flemming (NSA), runner-up for the boys, swam a time of 56.75 for the 100m freestyle, which earned him 564 points. Third on the Fina list was 15-year-old Kiara Schatz (NSA) with her 100m freestyle time of 1:03.01. This also earned her 564 points. Fourth on the list was Nicolai Flemming for the 50m backstroke with 563 points.
Zuné Weber (13) (NSA) swam a time of 1:03.20 (just 0.19 seconds behind Kiara Schatz) for a well-earned fifth place on the Fina list with 559 points, for her effort in the 100m freestyle.
Ronan Wantenaar (NSA), Tiana Esslinger (Dolphins), Mikah Burger (Dolphins) and Corley Viljoen (Dolphins) also produced impressive swims. The next gala will be held at the end of January 2015.
By Staff Reporter