Swimming National Championships Make Come Back
Calistus Kolantsho | Monday December 13, 2021 16:00
BSSA public relations officer, Rosie Seleka told Sport Monitor that the national championships is the biggest event in their calendar. She said the championships started on Thursday and ended yesterday (Sunday). “When coaches and athletes train during the year, they always have the national championships at the back of their minds. This is were where everyone wants to show case what they have.
If you do not take part in these competition, forget about being selected into the national team. But we have a team that travelled to Maseru for the AUSC Region 5 Games, they are excused because they were on a national assignment,” she said.
Seleka also said even if a swimmer has done well in other swimming galas and not compete in national championships, they are not recognised. She said the event was not held last year due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. She said it has been tough when it comes to the selection of the national team because swimmers did not have recent times. Seleka said some swimmers were selected using old times but there are some who clocked better times during the championships. “The performance in the national championships was brilliant. On Thursday we had 800m and 1500m. It was the first time that we had 1500m event at the nationals and that shows progress.
We had a good number of swimmers in those categories,” she said. Seleka said some of the BSSA members were had hit by COVID-19 and it has been difficult for them to send a team to the competition. She said some of them were using schools facilities and due to the pandemic, they did not have access to them. She said 10 clubs attended the competition and some of the clubs that did not pitch include Orapa and Phoenix.