{"id":22457,"date":"2022-06-16T10:12:24","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T10:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa"},"modified":"2022-06-16T10:48:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T10:48:43","slug":"skinner-makes-history-in-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa","title":{"rendered":"Skinner makes history in USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>NAMIBIAN swimmer Xander Skinner has been making waves in the United States where he recently won national acclaim for his swimming and academic exploits.<\/b><\/p>\n

Skinner last year graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BSC degree in exercise science at McKendree University in Illinois, and is currently doing a Masters degree in Business Administration at Arizona State University. Besides his academic exploits he has also excelled as a swimmer and earlier this week was elected to the prestigious CoSIDA Academic All America team for top students who excel in sport and academics.<\/p>\n

He made history in the process by becoming the first McKendree student to be selected to the team, and to win the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) Division 2 category.<\/p>\n

The All America team consists of the winners of various academic divisions, where universities are ranked according to their size, and Skinner came out on top in Division 2 for smaller universities with less than about 25 000 students.<\/p>\n

In the process he also won seven All-American honours in the pool at the 2022 NCAA Division II Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships, which means that he achieved seven top-eight places at the national championships, which is contested by the top Division II swimmers throughout America.<\/p>\n

With those seven honours, Skinner capped off his McKendree swimming career with 21 All-America accolades over the past five years, while he also received a GPA (Grade Point Average) of 3,88 which translates to just under 90 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cXander is the complete package that every coach dreams about having as part of their team. He came to McKendree eager to fit in and make a big impact on the Bearcats program and boy, did he ever leave his mark!\u201d his coach at McKendree bearcats, Jimmy Tierney said.<\/p>\n

“He was a stellar student and quite the team leader, as well. He was a co-captain in both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. He set the bar high for the rest of the team with a total commitment to team goals as a student and an athlete. Xander will be dearly missed, but his legacy will live on for years to come,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Along with earning seven All-America honours at this year’s NCAA Championships, Skinner also captured four gold medals at the 2022 Great Lakes Valley Conference Championships as he finished first in the 200m freestyle and 400m freestyle and was on McKendree’s gold medal winning 400m medley relay and 800m freestyle relay teams. In his career, he won 10 gold medals at the GLVC Championships.<\/p>\n

Skinner, himself, said it was a great honour.<\/p>\n

“It is a great honour receiving this award and to be the first student-athlete in McKendree history makes it a little more special. I would like to thank McKendree for making this possible and allowing me to live my dream as a student-athlete,” he said.<\/p>\n

He is now competing as a professional swimmer for the Arizona Sun Devils team where he is training under top American coaches Bob Bowman, who also trained Michael Phelps, and Herbie Behm.<\/p>\n

At the recent TYR Pro Swim series where he competed against some of America’s top swimmers like David Curtiss, Ryan Held and Trenton Julian, he finished sixth in the 50m freestyle, going under 23 seconds for the first time in a new Namibian record time of 22,91 seconds.<\/p>\n

He also came sixth in the 100m final in 50,59 and first in the 200m freestyle B final in 1:53,13.<\/p>\n

Those times were just outside his national records of 50,43 and 1:52,11 that he set at the SA National Championships in April, where he also set a new 50m butterfly record of 25,77 seconds.<\/p>\n

Skinner’s success has brought new accolades for his university as well as his country, but although his mother Sonja is very proud, she is quick to add that he deserves it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very proud of him, but it’s important to know how hard he’s been working for this. He trains weekdays 06h00-08h00 and 15h00-17h00 in the pool and goes to the gym twice a week, and besides that he also attends his Masters classes from 18h00 to 22h00, so its been very tough but he is self driven and deserves all of this. \u201c<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. NAMIBIAN swimmer Xander Skinner has been making waves in the United States where he recently won national acclaim for his swimming and academic exploits. Skinner last year graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BSC degree in exercise science at McKendree University in Illinois, and is currently doing a Masters degree in Business […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":22456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-22457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nSkinner makes history in USA - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"NAMIBIAN swimmer Xander Skinner has been making waves in the United States where he recently won national acclaim for ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Skinner makes history in USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NAMIBIAN swimmer Xander Skinner has been making waves in the United States where he recently won national acclaim for ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Namibia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-16T10:12:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-16T10:48:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/06\/postQueueImg_24-62ab0a72cfd99.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Skinner makes history in USA\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-06-16T10:12:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-16T10:48:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa\"},\"wordCount\":713,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/06\/postQueueImg_24-62ab0a72cfd99.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"africa press\",\"Africa Press-Namibia\",\"namibia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/skinner-makes-history-in-usa\",\"name\":\"Skinner makes history in USA - 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