Why TZ swimmers need modern swimming pools

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania took the third winning position in the African Swimming Federation (Cana-3) Zone-Three championships that were held in Khartoum, Sudan, recently.

Tanzania – which went to the tournament this year as the defending champion – scored 1,125 points overall, while the host Sudan won the first place after collecting 1,548 points. The Republic of South Africa came in second, with 1,248 points.

The country was represented by only 11 swimmers, one of whom was a woman: Maria Bachmann.

The other ten were all men, namely: Khaleed Ladha, Carter Helsby, Aravind Raghavindra, Mohameduwais Abdullatif, Christopher Fitzpatrick, Delhem Mohamed, Aaron Akwenda, Yuki Omori , Christian Shirima (who is based in the Ukraine) and Peter Itatiro, the youngest swimmer in the group.

Apart from the medals won, the swimmers managed to improve their time in the event.

The championships featured seven countries and the host Sudan won the trophy while South African finished in the second place.

Tanzania had planned to feature 32 swimmers in the event, but due to unavoidable reasons – including mostly lack of sponsors to meet some of the huge costs – many of the prospective competitors had to pull out of the competition due to the huge expenses.

The swimmers were required to travel to the venue not less than four days before the event took off. This would have enabled them train in modern swimming pool (50 metres pool), none of which is found in Tanzania.

Parents, Guardians and other supporters were required to incur the costs of the additional four days and, therefore, opted to pull out of the event, leaving only 11 of the original 32 swimmers to carry the national flag to the biggest swimming competition in the Zone-Three region.

Modern 50 meters swimming pool

tanzania which attained its Independence in 1961 is yet to have modern 50 meters swimming pool recognized by international sports governing bodies. The country has many private swimming pools, which are devoid of sophisticated equipment compared to those used in the South Africa level 1 and 2 championships. Johannesburg alone has 69 community swimming pools that are used to train swimmers and lifesavers. Ellis Park is among the deepest pool which was built in 1904.

Apart from the University of Dar es Salaam (Udsm) 33 meters swimming pool, other swimming pools found in Tanzania is of 25 meters. In Johannesburg, 25 meters swimming is used for warming up or for swimmers cooling down purposes. Despite having such swimming pools, Tanzania swimmers and officials are facing difficulties to get their actual personal time in the game due to absence of touchpad which record the swimmers time once they finish the race. Also Tanzania has no modern diving blocks which are used during diving competition or training.

Many swimmers expressed their concern on the matter saying, Tanzania should at least build one Olympic or modern community swimming pool that would be used to gain experiences ahead of international competitions.

“Look, we have to wake up very early in order to train at the full equipped swimming pool, we need to experience them before the competition, other swimmers are coming as per their schedule because they are familiar with the swimming pools modern facilities,” Dennis Mhini, the swimmer. Mhini explained that it is difficult to accustom modern swimming facilities in few hours before competitions.

If Tanzania would construct the standard 50-metre swimming pool, tournament costs would be reduced or avoided completely. Had many more swimmers traveled to Sudan for the tussle in Khartoum, the chances of Tanzania successfully defending the championship title would arguably have been much higher.

“Can you train one hour before you compete, you will adopt for a while and not like those who train in 50 meters pool that are not found in Tanzania,” said Kayla Temba who featured in the World Swimming Championships held in Hangzhou, China one month ago. She also said Tanzania need to have touchpad which is used to record swimmers finishing time.

Tanzania Swimming Association (TSA) secretary general, Inviolata Itatiro said swimmers who swim for country like South Africa have many options in preparing swimming schedule for swimmers due to availability of many community swimming pools. Inviolata said the cost of using facilities is less compared to Dar es Salaam. “For instance, Ellis Park charges 5 Rand (Sh 650) for child and 10 Rand (Sh1, 300) for adults to use swimming pool for whole day.