Wantenaar, Stergiadis star at nationals

RONAN Wantenaar and Heleni Stergiadis were the star performers at the Bank Windhoek National Long Course Swimming Championships over the weekend.

Wantenaar, of Aqua Swimming and Fitness Club, won six of the 17 trophies in the senior men’s category, to win the Senior Victor Ludorum award with 3 736 points.

Mikah Burger of Dolphins won three trophies and came second overall with 3 280 points, while Oliver Ohm of Dolphins, who also won three trophies, came third with 3 167 points.

There were also fine performances by the 13-year-old Dolphins swimmer Oliver Durand who won two trophies, and Christopher De Jager of Aqua, who won one trophy.

Wantenaar produced the three best performances based on Fina points, after obtaining 656 points for his 50m backstroke time of 27,61 seconds; 637 points for his 100m breaststroke time of 1:06,09; and 637 Fina points for his 50m breaststroke time of 30,15 seconds.

It was a remarkable performance bearing in mind that he was struck down by the coronavirus in December, which had a big impact on his training regime.

"I had Covid in December so it was a difficult experience for me. It affected my lungs quite a lot and I did rehab to recover from it, but I couldn’t do a lot of training, and especially cardio training, it felt like I was going to pass out,” he said.

“My performances were not where I wanted them to be, but looking at how much I actually trained and also the fact that I was recovering from Covid, I’m actually quite impressed by it,” he added.

The 20-year-old Wantenaar, meanwhile, will leave for Kazan, Russia soon after receiving a swimming scholarship from Fina and said he hoped to still qualify for the Olympic Games.

"I’ll see what I can do with the amount of time that is still available. My fitness isn’t where it should be, but I think I can still perform wonders with the right mindset and coaching, and I believe there’s a possibility that I can qualify.”

The 18-year-old Stergiadis was even more impressive, winning 11 of the senior women’s trophies as well as the Senior Victrix Ludorum trophy with 3 576 points, followed by Tiana Esslinger of Dolphins on 3 050 and Maya Stange of Dolphins with 2 974 points.

Stergiadis produced five of the top ten performances according to Fina points, with a best of 618 points for her time of 2:12,59 in the women’s 200m freestyle.

"It was great to be back in the water. I won most of my events, I got mostly gold and one silver medal, but that one was also a good race and I quite enjoyed it,” she said.

"It’s been a tough journey with the Covid lockdown to get back to top fitness again, but I’m close to my best times, and that was the goal for this year, so I can just improve from now on,” she added.

Stergiadis will also leave Namibia later this year to study in Greece and said she still hoped to qualify for the World Championships.

"In August I’m flying to Greece to study environmental sciences; they don’t have a swimming club at the university, but another club accepted me, so I’ll train with them and hopefully Ill make the world champs or maybe even the Commonwealth Games,” she said.

Oliver Durand won the Junior Victor Ludorum trophy with 142 points, followed by Ellis Quinn of Dolphins with 97 and Liam Kinniard of Dolphins on 88; while Jessica Humphrey of Aqua won the Junior Victrix Ludorum trophy with 124 points, followed by Rose Matyayi of Aqua on 122 and Reza Westerduin of Aqua on 99 points.

Dolphins Swimming Club won the team award with 3 124, 50 points, followed by Aqua Swimming and Fitness Club (1 587,50) and Oranjemund Sand Sharks (221).

The trophy winners, Fina points and complete results are attached.

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