Bluefins names swimming squad ahead of Taliss-IST championships

Bluefins Swim Club members pose after a training session that took place yesterday at Upanga in Dar es Salaam. Bluefins will field 24 swimmers in the Taliss-IST Swimming Championships scheduled for next Saturday and Sunday at the International School of Tanganyika’s swimming pool at Masaki in the city. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • The swimmers will compete in various age categories including under eight; 9 and 10; 11 and 12; 13 and 14; 15 and 16, 17 and over for both boys and girls

Dar es Salaam. One of the swimming giants in the country, Bluefins, will field a squad of 24 swimmers in the Taliss-IST Swimming Championships.

The event will be held next Saturday and Sunday at the 25-metres pool of the International School of Tanganyika (IST) at Masaki in the city. It will feature other 13 clubs from various regions.

The club's founder and head trainer, Rahim Alidina, named the swimmers as Sahal Harunani, Aaliya Takim, Kabeer Lakhani and Zainab Moosajee, who are in the national swimming team.

Others, according to Alidina, are Imaan Kimario, Saalih Mbonde, Qais Kanji, Abbas Abdulali, Moiz Kaderbhai, Adnan Hassanali, Rania Noorani, Burhanuddin Jafferjee and Hassan Harunani.

The list also has Zaeem Somji, Burhanuddin Jivajee, Zahra Alibhai, Shuneal Bharwani, Burhanuddin Huzeifa, Idris Zavery, Uzair Harunani, Ithra Kahemele, Burhanuddin Abdulkadir,Maahira Noorani and Taher Zavery. The swimmers are still in intensive training ahead of the event.

"Our coaches have been training our swimmers well for this event and we are very excited to see how they will perform in this weekend's event,” said Alidina. 

Alidina added that, “We have managed to include up and coming swimmers in the team for this event and we are very confident that they will do well and improve their personal best times in the event.

Besides Bluefins, there are Dar es Salaam Swim Club, Mis Piranhas from Morogoro, Lake Swim Club, Mwanza Swim Club, Pigec, Bluefins, LVSC, Riptide, Train2gain, French School and Braeburn Swim Club Kenya. The list also has Zanzibar’s Wahoo, Flash Swim Club from Uganda, CRSC, FK Blue Marlins, Premier Swim Club and the hosts, Taliss-IST Swim Club.

The swimmers will compete in various age categories including under-eight; 9 and 10; 11 and 12; 13 and 14; 15 and 16, 17 and over for both boys and girls. They will also battle it out for medals in five swimming styles, namely: backstroke, butterfly, freestyle, breaststroke, individual medley and relays.

The event will have the country’s top-ranked swimmers, who will compete against others from other clubs in the country.

The contest is intended to keep the swimmers busy maintaining and up-scaling their swimming standards.

Awards will be given to the first three winners of each age category in the event, which is expected to feature more than 200 swimmers.