Mash-province defends swimming title

March 18, 2019

Mash-province defends swimming title

Cloud Fusire, Sports Reporter

MASHONALAND defended their national junior swimming title in style after winning 103 medals at this year’s national finals held at Petra Primary School in Bulawayo.

The two-day event, which attracted five provinces, saw Mashonaland being crowned national junior swimming champions for the fifth time in a row.

They won 45 gold, 32 silver and 26 bronze medals, with a combined team points of 1 265.

Runners-up and Matabeleland got seven gold, 22 silver and 17 bronze medals with 661 points.

Mashonaland Country Districts were third with seven medals.

The defending champions were unstoppable as they went home with all nine aggregate trophies.

Mashonaland team captain Matida Musere took the event by storm, winning six gold and two siver medals, and was crowned the 12-year-olds’ overall aggregate trophy winner.

Wisdom Shumba proved to be a force, as he grabbed the 12-year-olds boys’ overall aggregate trophy with six gold and one bronze medal.

Eleven-year-old Kalipengule Limbikani capped fine performances by Mashonaland by scooping five gold medals and two silver.

Mashonaland team manager Nikki Johnson was excited by the outcome at the meet and said they will dominated the event for a long time because of development programmes in place in the province.

“We are happy. We are proud of our team performance, as we managed to defend our title for the fifth time. We faced a great challenge from the host team (Matabeleland), especially in the relay events, but we are pleased that we managed to defend our title and we hope to maintain our winning streak,” said Johnson.

Matabeleland manager Megan Nesbitt believes they can dethrone Mashonaland next year if they improve their grey areas.

“We were not that bad and I also think the number of the swimmers worked to their disadvantage. But we can’t take away that the Mashonaland team was exceptional. We just need to improve on certain areas like our timings and take-offs. I think if we improve on that we can win the next tournament,” said Nesbitt.