Young swimming team building confidence, says Pini

PAPUA New Guinea’s emerging swimmers have built their confidence as they progress in regional and international tournaments, PNG Olympian and iconic swimmer Ryan Pini says.
Pini made this encouraging remark following outstanding performances from the country’s eight swimmers in the 2024 Oceania Aquatics Championship in Australia earlier this week.
“It’s been very encouraging for the current team. I love seeing their progress and then coming together as a team is really important and I think they’re such great ambassadors for the sport,” Pini said.
“They will be able to come back and instill this confidence and idea that the younger generation can look up to and go do well.”
Pini said it was a great experience for the young side competing against the Australians and the rest of the Pacific Island countries in the four-day championship.
“Competing against the Australians, the Fijians and the rest of our Pacific community, it’s really good and that’s what they need,” he said.
“They need more of this competition together as that of a Pacific family. Some of our swimmers are eyeing off their tickets to Paris (Olympics) so hopefully by the next month or so we’ll get to find out who will take those spots.”
The eight athletes that represented PNG at the regional championships were Georgia Leigh Vele, Jhynayali Tokome-Garap, Joanna Chen and Abigail Ai Tom (women’s), Josh Tarere, Nathaniel Noka, Felix Devlin and Thomas Chen (men’s).
PNG recorded a few medal wins with Georgia Leigh Vele winning the first bronze in the women’s 50m butterfly, Jhynayali Tokome-Garap winning a bronze in the women’s 50m backstroke and the women’s 4x200m freestyle finals through Vele, Tokome-Garap, Joanna Chen and Abigail Ai Tom apart from the national team reps smashing their personal bests at the four-day championship.