Four of the Kouga Swim Club’s open water swimmers took part in the Ocean Racing Series in Port Elizabeth recently. They all did really well with three 3rd places and a first time ever ocean swim for Sally Waterworth who recently started training with the Club.
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The Swim Club recently held a mini gala at the Training Edge Gym that was well supported by the Club’s winter swimmers.
Due to the Swim Club training indoors over the winter, the format of the gala was sprints, with a number of the Club’s Penguin and Dolphin Squads participating in their first ever gala.
Bleyton Smit was nervous but had a great gala.
Swim coach, Brenton Williams said that it was the perfect environment to introduce some of the swimmers who are only 5 years old to the competitive side of swimming.
“We worked on one length (12.5m) races for the little ones at training and they all swam so well. Joma Kriek, who has recently been promoted to the Penguin Squad had a great gala, as did Jonathan Bester and David Vos”.
Coach Brenton explains who will swim in what races.
Bleyton Smit from the Dolphins showed he has potential to become a great breaststroke swimmer while Christy Bester also swam well.
The bigger swimmers showed that hard work in the pool pays off with Andre Saunders knocking off 7 seconds off his previous best 25m butterfly time. ‘Andre has really come a long way in his swimming and is determined to improve his times”, said Brenton.
Jonathan Bester cannot resist having a peek at the opponents.
Michelle Strydom has also trained hard this winter and has developed a nice stroke which has seen her starting to swim faster, according to her coach. Andre Olivier also impressed as did Becky Baard in her first club gala.
Danie and Pieter Ellis hardly ever miss a training session and this showed in their results. Junior won 5 out of 7 races while younger brother Pieter who was competing against the older swimmers, scooped 2 x second places and 2 x third places in his races.
Mark Petrellis and Bailey Robertson swam a time trial after the gala and both recorded some fast times.
The Swim Club is waiting for the water in the canals at Marina Martinique to warm up before they start their summer open water swim training. The first event of the EP Open Water Swim Series takes place at the Marina in front of the LaCaribe flats on 3 October.
Yesterday, the Swim Club decided to go to Main Beach and do some bodysurfing as it was a nice day with a big swell running. The Club hosts an open water swim series during the summer months at Marina Martinique, including the ever popular Marina Mile
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This week’s Telkom Splash dedicates the entire programme to highlights of the SA National Level 3 Age Group Swimming Champs – held in East London recently.
This is the top competition for our countries top Junior Swimmers, as they compete from the 12 years and under category all the way up to 17 – 18.
This competition also serves as a double qualifier – firstly for our juniors to qualify for the SA National Senior Champs (Durban, 12 -17 April) but more importantly for a squad of up to 8 swimmers that could (if they qualify) represent SA at the 1st Inaugural Youth Olympics (Singapore in August 2010).
Included is a learn to swim related story – Mafata Modutoane from Learn to Swim speaks about SSA’s motto, every child a swimmer, and we see a group of mentally impaired swimmers in action at the Piranha Swimming Club – as life skills educator Pila Ngole explains.
