Five swimmers for UAE

12Feb 2016
Our Reporter
Dar es Salaam
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Five swimmers for UAE

TANZANIA is expected to send five swimmers to compete in this year’s edition of Dubai International Aquatic Championships to be held from March 29 through April at Hamdan Sports Complex. The event will be used as a qualifier for this year’s Olympics in Brazil.

The Tanzania Swimming Association’s (TSA) secretary general Ramadhan Namkomveka yesterday said executive committee of the association agreed to send the swimmers to Dubai, noting that not all swimmers will qualify for Mauritius championships which will also be used as Rio Olympic qualifier berth.

He said the country has confirmed to participate at the Dubai championships.

“The executive committee agrees to send other swimmers to Dubai, this was reached after noting that not all of our swimmers can manage to travel to Mauritius, Dubai is also simple to travel due to flight connectivity”, he said.

Namkomveka said they expect TSA technical committee to submit names of swimmers who will travel to Dubai next week.
He said although TSA has been given wild card (Universality Ticket) by International Olympic Committee (IOC) through International Swimming Association (FINA), the association’s aim is to send to Brazil qualified swimmers.

“We have been communicated by FINA that we have wild card entry, but TSA want to send swimmers who will earn qualification, it’s not that we are not happy with the wild card, but our aim is to see our swimmers earn the slot through hard work and not free slots”, he said.

The TSA official said in the event that Tanzania swimmers fail to qualify for the Brazil, universality tickets will be given to swimmers who represented the country at the last year’s world swimming championships held in Russia.

He urged all Tanzania swimmers who want to compete in Brazil Olympics to compete at events sanctioned by FINA and closing date for Rio qualifying events is July 3.

“Our swimmers must work very hard to attain qualifying time, even B grade for men in 50 meters swimming is 23.05 seconds, while for women is 26.17 seconds, I think if our swimmers put much efforts they can qualify for this year’s Olympics”, he said.

The TSA official said there are many Brazil Olympics qualifying events, but his association is giving priority to events happening in Africa like the South Africa Level 3 which will be held in March through April and the CANA zone four championships to be held in Mauritius from April 20.

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