Swimmers all set
The National, Thursday 2nd May 2013
SEVENTY-nine swimmers will take part in the Theodist National Swimming Championships from tomorrow to Sunday (May 3-5) at the Ela Murray International School 25-metre pool in Boroko.
Competitors will come from the two active clubs in the country – Lae and Boroko – alongside overseas-based swimmers like Barbara Vali-Skelton and Sam Seghers training under Shaun Crow at Acacia Bayside, Brisbane; Savananna and Ebony Tkatchenko training at St Peter’s Western Club Brisbane; Stanford Kawale, Ryan Maskelyne and James Runnegar training at Grammar Swimming Ipswich Boys Grammar under Greg Fasala and Tegan Mccarthy training at TAS (the Anglican School) in Cairns.
PNG Swimming president Elizabeth Wells said the best age group athletes would compete and they hoped new personal best times would be swum and records broken. Competition times are:
l Tomorrow: warm-up 3.30pm, competition starts 4,30pm;
l Saturday: Session 2 warm-up 7am, competition starts 8am;
l Session 3 warm-up 3pm, competition starts 4pm;
l Session 4 Sunday: warm-up 7am, competition starts 8am.
Wells said competition would be freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly – 50m, 100m, 200m from six-year-old to masters and the 400m, 800m freestyle.
Over 555 entries have been collected and collated by PNG Swimming Inc registrar Barbara Skelton.
Competing over the weekend will be athletes preparing for the FINA World Championships to be held in Spain, with the swimming events from July 28-Aug 5. They include Stanford Kawale, Barbara Vali-Skelton and Tegan McCarthy.
“I express my gratitude to the organisers of the Theodist National Championships and the host Club BASC who have done their best to provide a great competition run under FINA rules,” Wels said.
“This annual prestigious event on the PNGSI calendar brings together our talented and enthusiastic athletes and volunteers from around the country and overseas, showing that the strength and quality of swimming in PNG along with the commitment and dedication of the volunteers is continually growing.”
“We will see many of our technical officials who participated in the FINA swim officials school held recently throughout the weekend along with our two FINA referees, Sue Babao and Sarenah Pini and PNG referee Albert Vigil.
At the end of the competition, a train-on squad will be named for the Singapore National Championships in June and the FINA Junior World Championship in Dubai in late August.