• SWIMMERS competing at the National Swimming Gala at the 90 Days Legacy Pool in Lusaka. Picture courtesy of OYDC

By MWANGALA LISELI –
TWENTY-EIGHT more national records were broken during the Zambia Amateur Swimming Union (ZASU) national gala held at the 90-Days Legacy Swimming Pool at the Olympic Youth Development Centre (OYDC) in Lusaka.
This feat followed Day One where eight records were broken and among those 28 national record breakers was 16-year-old Tom Donker, who broke the 200m backstroke record after beating his old time of 2:16.39 to set a new time of 2:14.59 minutes.
There was also an exciting time from eight-year-old Jade Phiri, who beat her own record in the girls’ eight-year-old 50m butterfly after clocking 44:53 seconds from the old time of 46.44 seconds.
Others who entered their names into the record books included Tyler Prince, Adam Pinfold, Naested Smitt, Fleur Donker, Mia Phiri, all of American International School (AIS) Torpedoes and in their various fields.
The rest were Ray Javaheri, Shaquille Moosa, Shanni Hassen, and Brandon Rumball all of Kapentas.
Meanwhile, ZASU president David Thompson expressed happiness with the performance of swimmers saying not so many national records had been broken before at one event.
Thompson said he was also impressed by the high number of participants at the gala which was new and had never taken place before.
“It’s fantastic because even the number of swimmers participating has improved. The swimmers are competing and this is a sign that swimming is a growing sport in this country,” Thompson said.
Thompson said the country would be represented by some of the participants of the ZASU national gala at five international galas lined up this year.
He said swimmers will take part in the Zambia Invitational Gala which will see more than 80 Zambian swimmers participating, the CANA Zone-Four slated for Angola which will have about 50 swimmers participating.
Thompson said some junior swimmers would compete in the Commonwealth Junior Championships to be held in Samoa in the Pacific Islands and some senior swimmers would be sent to Kazan in Russia.
The ZASU all age groups national gala commenced on Thursday and was expected to come to an end last evening.