School boy breaks swimming record Zim team make the nation proud

In the 100 m Breaststroke final the strong field set off at a devastating pace and at the turn Lawson was over a body length behind the leaders and looked completely out of it. He dug deep and in the final length clawed his way back into contention and, with the crowd on its feet, snatched an impossible victory in the last stroke. Lawsons winning time of 1.09:20 was an African record and a new Zimbabwe U16 record. Twenty minutes later, with insufficient time to recover from his Herculean effort he was back on the blocks for the final of the 200 Individual Medley.

After the second length he was trailing by over 15 m and again seemed relegated to a distant place, but in an astonishing length of power breast stroke of the highest quality the young man overtook the entire field and turned a body length ahead going into the final lap. He then managed to hold off the fast finishing South African and Egyptian swimmers to clinch a wonderful double. He rounded off his week with a silver medal, splits behind the winner, in the 50m Breast stroke in a time of 31.83 sec which is a Zimbabwe U15 National Record.

Chisipite schoolgirl Samantha Welch continued her return to swimming by winning silver medals in the 50m and 100m Breast stroke events. Her times lowered her own National Records that she now holds up to U17 level, which means she has effectively broken 16 national records within the space of a month.

She was swimming against the South African breast stroke prodigy, Jessica Liss, who is probably the best breast stroker of her age in the World. Samantha came within a whisker of causing a major upset by closing fast on Liss in the final 15m of the sprint event which caused a buzz around the stadium. She was narrowly relegated to bronze in the 200 Individual Medley in an excellent time of 2.31:59 Kaleigh Graham, a year young for the event, proved she is a swimmer of the future by winning bronze in the 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle with fast times. Her 50m fly time of 31:47 in the prelims is a new Zimbabwe U13 record which has been held by Kirsty Coventry for many years. As fast as this time was it was not enough to even get her into the U14 Finals of the All Africa, such was the quality of the swimming. Her older sister Syannne added a silver and two bronzes in the 50m, 100 m and 200 m Breast stroke events respectively.

Tarryn Rennie narrowly missed out on the podium twice before finally bagging two bronze medals in her main events, the 50m freestyle and the 50m butterfly. This talented swimmer is finally proving that she can hold her own in the longer distances. This age group that she, Samantha and Kaleigh competed in featured three SA swimmers, -Jessica Liss, Vanessa Mohr and Tamlyn Crafford – who are amongst the best in the game in their various events and the quality of swimming was astounding.

The girls teamed up and competed in the U16 relay events because they only had three U14 swimmers and therefore had to swim in Syanne Grahams age group so they could make up a relay team. This hastily put together team rose to the occasion and brought home 3 bronze medals. Their time of 4:46:69 in the Medley relay was an U16 National record which was a great effort and proves that with international exposure our top swimmers have the ability to compete with the best.