By Staff Reporter
TSUMEB – The first Bank Windhoek long course swimming gala kicked off in Tsumeb last weekend as local swimmers braved the cold water and strong wind to record a significant number of good times.
Allthough no records tumbled, several swimmers stroked themselves to personal bests in their respective races. Jureck Johannesson of Namib Swimming Academy (NSA) and Petri Bruwer of Dolphins Swimming Club improved all their times in all ten events.
The trio of Martin Oosthuizen (Dolphins), Anneke Eisenberg (Dolphins) and Matthias Lichtenberg (Dolphins) also went a step better in 9 out of the 10 events with Corne le Roux (Dolphins) and Tiana Esslinger (Dolphins) repeating the same feat in the age group 11/12 for boys and 9/10 for girls respectively.
The best overall achievement of the gala, according to FINA points, was 15-year old Zanre Oberholzer (Namib Swimming Academy) in the 100m backstroke event with an astonishing time of 1:07.66, in the process scoring 633 points. FINA points are used as qualifying criteria for all international galas.
Meanwhile, local swimmers are hard in training for the upcoming international events and the Bank Windhoek National Championships. The next event, the LC Gala 2 takes place at the Western Suburbs swimming pool in Khomasdal, from the 31st of this month.