Port Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela Bay, is reeling in it’s first ever world class international swimming meet at the newly revamped Newton Park Swimming Complex this weekend. World and Olympic champions from around the world to take part in the first international meet of the season which also sees several of the EP swimming stars getting their first opportunity of racing against some of the world’s best.
By far the most popular with the public was paralympic champion Natalie du Toit who is the only paralympic swimmer to also take part in the Olympic games. Du Toit was swarmed by local kids for autographs and photographs and was most welcoming of the children.”It’s wonderful to finally meet my swimming hero.” said 9 year old Clarendon Park pupil Claudia Zoetmulder who accompanied her father Mike Zoetmulder, who is a keen promoter of establishing Nelson Mandela Bay as Africa’s water sport capital.
“To have such an array of swimming talent in our city is fantastic and we hope that many will return home with fond memories of Port Elizabeth,” said Zoetmulder, “Through swimming South Africa it was great to have the opportunity to talk to many of the visiting swimmers and to be able to promote other swimming events which the city has to offer. Talking to World Champions Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos it was great to hear their positive comments about the Newton Park swimming complex and Cameron’s view that he compared this pool to the Kingspark complex which has been host to almost all of the countries previous international meetings.”
“It’s wonderful to see our local swimmers competing against the countries best swimmers, the confidence which meetings like this will create will have a long lasting benefit on swimming in the Eastern Cape.”
Following this weekends international meeting, Swimming South African will announce their high performance swimming squad which will begin preparation for London 2012. On Friday afternoon in Port Elizabeth, Swimming South African announced the appointment of Graham Hill as the new National Swimming Coach. Hill who hails from Kwazulu Natal is the head coach of the Seagulls club which features the bulk of the national swimming squad will now be tasked with the job of getting the swimmers prepared for the Olympic qualifiers at this years World Championships at the end of July.
Alan Straton
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