TEAM Zimbabwe coach for the upcoming 20th World Aquatics Championships, Lindsy Tudor Cole, is banking on the team’s experience as they ramp up preparations for this global meet.
Zimbabwe will be represented by four athletes — Donata Katai, Paige Van Der WestHuizen, Denilson Cyprianos and Liam Davis — in the tournament to be hosted in Japan.
The championships will run from July 14 to 30 in Fukuoka and is expected to attract more than 2 000 top athletes from about 190 countries.
The participating athletes will compete in diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming, water polo and swimming.
This will be the second time Fukuoka hosts the event, 22 years after the 2000 championships.
Tudor-Cole indicated that the athletes have been preparing for this event for some time now and this is not their first time to compete at a global stage which will work to their advantage.
For the men’s category, Davis will compete in the 200m breaststroke, with Cyprianos in the 100m and 200m backstroke.
Katai will take part in the 50m and 100m backstroke, while Van Der WestHuizen will partake in the 100m and 200m freestyle in women’s category.
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“All the four athletes we are travelling with have quite a lot of experience, they have done Junior World/ World championships before and that's fantastic. I feel that coming from Zimbabwe or smaller nations is a lot overwhelming at the first time to go at the world stage; so thankfully, all our athletes have got experience and it’s just getting more experience, more confidence and they have been training very hard,” she said.
"Obviously they are all looking forward to set new personal best times and that is ultimately the goal for us right now. They have also been performing at other events in order to qualify for this event. They have to go to World Aquatics registered galas in order to post times to be selected for this gala. So, they have been working hard and competing probably for the last 18 months to two years to build up to this.”
Meanwhile, the competition will also serve as a qualifying event for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
