Zambia Swimming Union (ZASU) president Guy Phiri has confirmed that the National Swimming Competition (NSC) is set to take place in April 2021 after the competition was put on hold in December 2020 due to the covid pandemic.
Phiri said the competition that is set to take place on April, 17, 2020 at an estimated cost of K220,000 at the Olympic Youth Development Centre (OYDC) will be without spectators as advised by the Ministry of Health due to covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times (ZBT), Phiri said the union is checking on how the top swimmers are doing, it is a good opportunity to get time for the top local swimmers so that we assess who is performing and who is not, and that helps with selection to national teams for international events.
“The event is going to be without spectators, which is unfortunate but because of limitations due to the covid pandemic, we have to be very careful on limiting the number at the event but we are going to be streaming the event.
“We haven’t had any entries yet, but we are expecting 30 clubs from around the country, so we are expecting to have 300 swimmers across the country to come and compete in the event,” Phiri told ZBT.
In terms of running the federation, we need support from the Sports Council of Zambia (SCZ), National Olympic Committee (NOC) and the mother body which is the International Federation for Swimming (IFS).
The union president said, the biggest challenge they are facing is to have public swimming pools in all provinces. We are appealing to government to consider having a public swimming pool to host competitive swimming in every provincial headquarters, which should be put together by the Ministry of Local Government and Housing through the council.
“We used to have swimming pools in all major towns and cities of Zambia, but the various councils leased them out to private investors, but most of these have also failed to run them successfully,” he said. He said the Olympic Swimming pool at OYDC has also been given to a private investor to do something with it, but the investor has completely failed, the pool lying in a terrible state.
Phiri said when it comes to spreading the sport across the country, the union has outreach programs, called “learn to swim program” where the union teaches people how to swim. He said the union also engages schools in swimming, which is predominated by coach’s associations to run the programs in schools and these Swimming coaches are well trained and qualified.
Phiri told ZBT that the union provides training for coaching and certification for the coachers. We also provide training for international coaching which is recognized worldwide and the union relies on the international trained coaches to implement programs within schools and when those school swimmers graduate, they become part of the national swimmers team and join registered clubs and compete in the national league.
