Swim Studio’s 20 years of excellence
Children from 13 pre-schools and day care centres were given the opportunity to show their families their acquired safety and swimming skills, and to be awarded certificates and badges.
Since local Inter-Schools swimming competitions are very rare nowadays, the Swim Studio’s Awards Days, run over four days, are a great opportunity for swimmers to be able to compare their abilities to those of their peers in other schools.
Children from 13 pre-schools and day care centres were given the opportunity to show their families their acquired safety and swimming skills, and to be awarded certificates and badges. These young ones were kept in their familiar school groups, except for the Grade Rs ( those born in 2008), where all schools were put together in order to find the best six-year-old boy and girl. Competition was tough, but Denva Shaw from Sunnybanks came out tops, with Siyabonga Ngobese from St Dominic’s a very close runner-up. Mioné de Valence from Bergsig won the girls’ section, with Zoe Kruger from St Dominic’s as the runner-up.
On November 15, 16, 22 and 23, pupils from ten primary schools competed in four more age groups:
The best seven-year-old boy (born 2007) was Sinakho Thusi, who is in St Dominic’s Pre-Primary. The best seven-year-old girl was Hloni Mthimkhulu, a Grade 1 pupil, also in St Dominic’s.
The best eight-year-old boy and girl were Ethan Kruger and Nkosi Nonyane, both from St Dominic’s Primary.
John Douthwaite, principal of St Dominic’s and guest of honour at one of the events, presented Aspen Shaw from Hutties and Afika Nkosi from St Dominic’s with their trophies for the best nine-year-old swimmers.
Please bear in mind that at this age and level of learning, the emphasis is solely on technique, not fitness or speed. Once the techniques of the four Olympic strokes are mastered according to the Fina (International Swimming Federation) rules, swimmers are equipped to move on to coaches, who will register them with the Newcastle Swimming Club (red and black uniform on the photo) to start competitive training — usually around the age of 11 for girls and 12 for boys.
The trophies for the Best Senior Boy and Girl, 10yr + (born 2004 and before) went to exactly two such swimmers, who after five years of learning at the Swim Studio, have been swimming competitively with a coach for the past two years: Ruan (13) and Danielle Bosman (10), both from Hutties. Ruan and Danielle, as well as Kai Goosen, have been back at the Swim Studio the past term to learn the intricate techniques of the Fina Competitive Starts and Turns, for which they received certificates at the awards day.
The following swimmers also received trophies: Phiwokuhle Zulu (6) and Lisa Conradie (5), both of St Dominic’s, who were the Most Advanced for Age Boy and Girl; Sakhile Ngema (10), from Drakies and Casey Ackerman (13), from Hutties were the Most Co-operative Boy and Girl; Naleli Zincume (7), from St Dominic’s was the Most Improved Swimmer and Siyabonga Ngobese (6), also from St Dominic’s, was the Most Promising Swimmer.
