Local swimmer learn from the Americans
One of Pretoria's promising young swimmers recently had the opportunity to practice in America for two months and she returned with new horizons for the sport.
A Centurion swimmer was recently invited to swim with a club in Arizona in the US and compete as part of their team at the Sectionals Gala.
Taneal Baptiste swims with Players Swimming Club and is one of the top swimmers in her age group in South Africa.
She has won the 200m and 400m freestyle for the last two years, at the junior national championships. She also won the 100m freestyle in 2014, and silver in 2015.
Baptiste, a pupil at Cornwall Hill College, is also strong in the butterfly events and has finished in the top five over the last couple of years at national championships.
Her versatility was one of the reasons the American club invited her to train with them and compete in the American competition. All the swimmers there are extremely strong and mostly faster than South Africans.
Baptiste made the trip to the US and stayed there for about two months. She enjoyed training with the team and experiencing Arizona State University.
As a bonus, she also had the opportunity to meet Michael Phelps while on a tour of the university.
Baptiste got to interact with current National Collegiate Athletics Association swimmers and to be part of a club team. She was also matched with the strength of American swimming, the facilities and how US swimmers competed and trained.
Baptiste did extremely well at the gala, making the finals and swimming some personal best times.
The highlight for her however, was to experience a new level of training and competition and to see how she could do things differently and where she needed to improve, taking her swimming to a next level.
Remember the name Taneal Baptiste, we will definitely hear a lot from her in the future.
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