AfricaPress-Tanzania: INADEQUATE investment in swimming has been labelled as a big challenge which prevents swimmers in the country from shining in various international competitions.
This was said recently by a renowned swimming coach Khalid Rushaka who insisted that despite the country having talented swimmers, they fail to do well in major contests hence called on concerned authorities to jump in.
“I think lack of enough investment in swimming is a very big challenge for the sport to grow and enable our athlete reach far when it comes to major competitions organised in different parts of the world.
” Also, the other thing affecting swimming is inadequate funding. To compete at the highest level, one needs to have enough funds which go into ample preparations and finally travelling to the place where the contest is being held.
Failure to get these, then we cannot respect anything tangible,” he said.
He also pointed out that investing in youth swimming academies is a big step towards excelling in the development of the sport saying the young swimmers are the future champions.
“Anywhere you go, you find out that the only way to fast track the growth of a particular sport is by grooming the young athletes and less than that, nothing better is gained,” he said.
Also, Rushaka revealed that lack of essential facilities which are demanded in the sport of swimming is also a contributing factor which dwindles the perfect run of the game in the country.
“For example, here in Tanzania, we do not have an Olympic standard swimming pool as such, when our athlete has qualified to compete in big events which are normally done in big swimming pools, it becomes a challenge.
“In such scenarios, a swimmer is compelled to travel to the country where they have Olympic standard swimming pools for him or her to train prior to the competition which in most cases is very expensive,” he said.
He then recommended that a lot of work should be done to produce competitive swimming coaches who should be disbursed in various parts of the country to identity talented swimmers and train them.
“Also, it would be wise for the government to intervene and help in all processes which can lead to the development of swimming in our nation,” he said.
