Despite having more contestants than last year’s event, the 2015 Malawi Aquatic Union (MAU) National Championships held at St Andrew’s International High School in Blantyre last weekend registered a serious decline in number of record-breakers.
This year’s event had 224 swimmers, but only five contestants—all juniors—broke previous records. Nevertheless, last year’s competition, which had less than 150 contestants, produced about 30 record-breakers.
While mentioning Annika Melrose as one of the record-breakers in the Under-12 butterfly category, MAU national coach Yona Walesi said needed more time to scrutinise the results to give actual details of swimmers that have broken the records. The details were still not ready as we went to press.
“But what is obvious is that we have more work to do to get things back in order. We need to restructure our programmes as soon as possible. We need to emphasise on quality of our athletes more rather than quantity,” he said.
Walesi also said they are worried that senior athletes are now shunning middle and long distance swimming categories, a development that will impact negatively on the national team.
“We had few senior swimmers and most of them were limited to short distances. It was embarrassing to have only one contestant in some events. These are issues of great concern and we need to sit down to map the way forward,” said Walesi.
