14 new records set at swimming nationals

DESPITE unfavourable weather and exceptionally cold water, the 2012 Long Course Namibia National Swimming Championships produced 14 records over the past weekend.

Close to 200 swimmers from Windhoek-based Dolphins Swimming Club and Namib Swimming Academy, Oranjemund Sharks Swimming Club and Swakopmund Swimming Club competed at the championships at the Windhoek municipal pool in Olympia. The championships also saw the introduction of the new electronic timing system, which was recently acquired by the City of Windhoek. It was successfully tested during the gala and will hopefully become a regular feature at future swimming events.A total of seven individual and seven relay records were broken.Kiah Borg of Namib Swimming Academy set the pace with three new records in the women’s 13-14 year age group category. She set a new 50m breaststroke record of 35,97, 100m breaststroke record of 1:18,52 and 200m breaststroke record of 2:51,06. Zanre Oberholzer of NSA also set three records in the women’s 13-14 year category. She set a new 100m backstroke record of 1:08,32, while her winning time of 2:25,85 in the 200m backstroke was a new 13/14 year age group record as well as an open record. Christine Briedenhann of the NSA set a new women’s 15-16 year 100m butterfly record of 1:06,53. The NSA women’s open relay team of Zanre Oberholzer, Daniela Lindemeier, Kiara Schatz and Christine Briedenhann set a new 400m medley relay record of 4:39,62, breaking the previous record by more than five seconds. The Dolphins team of Heleni Stergiadis, Vicky Botha, Joanne Liebenberg and Carissa Esslinger set a new women’s 9-10 200m freestyle relay record of 2:23,88, which was more than four seconds faster than the previous record. The Dolphins team of De Wet Oosthuizen, Ricardo Rechter, Barend Loftie-Eaton and Ricardo Richter set a new men’s 11-12 200m freestyle record of 2:09,73, to break the old record by more than two seconds. The NSA team of Kiara Schatz, Zanre Oberholzer, Sonja Adelaar and Kiah Borg set a new women’s 13-14 200m freestyle record of 1:57,85, to break the previous record by more than four seconds. The NSA team of Zanre Oberolzer, Daniela Lindemeier, Kiah Borg and Christine Briedenhann set a women’s open 200m medley relay record of 2:07,91, to beat the previous mark of 2:08,71. Dolphins Swimming Club won the National Championships with 3580,5 points, followed by NSA on 2 471,5 points, Oranjemund Sharks with 499 points and Swakopmund with 176 points. The Single Best Performance of the Day Trophy was awarded to the 16-year-old Christine Briedenhann for obtaining 669 Fina points in the 100m freestyle which she won in 59,51 seconds. Quinton Delie of Dolphins won the Senior Victor Ludorum trophy, while Christine Briedenhann of NSA won the Senior Victrix Ludorum trophy. Alex Skinner of Dolphins won the Junior Victor Ludorum trophy while Kiah Borg of NSA won the Junior Victrix Ludorum trophy. Namibian teams will still compete in three international events before the end of the year. A 15-member team will travel to Lusaka to compete in the Zone VI U20 Youth Games, while a Namibian team will also compete in the NOCASA Sprints in Kimberley. Namibia’s top swimmers Quinton Delie, JP Engelbrecht, Daniela Lindemeier and Christine Briedenhann will compete in the Fina Short Course World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey.