Gqeberha-based PE Amateur Swimming Club will be looking to grab the headlines in the National Swimming Championships at the Newton Park Swimming Pool starting on Wednesday.
The event doubles as an Olympic and Paralympic trial event and eight of the 14 swimmers from team Eastern Cape are members of PEA and train under the guidance of head and renowned national coach Mark Edge.
With some athletes in with a genuine shot of achieving the Olympic qualifying standards set out by international swimming body Fina, there are bound to be some blockbuster clashes in the pool.
Basson twins, Alard and Alaric, 25, Amica de Jager, 21, Ian Venter, 22, Bathandwa Dyantyi, 22, Brandon Chapman and Martin Wolmarans, both 18, and Charl Parkin, 52, will be flying the club’s flag as they compete across various events at the six-day event.
The Basson twins, who are ranked in the top two positions for the breaststroke events, are excited about having the homeground advantage but are also well aware of the magnitude of the task.
Alaric will swim the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke events, while Alard will tackle the 50m and 100m butterfly and breaststroke events.
“Preparations have been going well, despite the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which put us slightly on the back foot in terms of our preparations, but training has been going great and I feel we are back to where we were before and hopefully we can swim some fast times,” Alaric said.
“It is a pity a guy like Michael Houlie [in the US] is not here competing at the championships as well so there might not be as many swimmers who are able to push me to gain that qualifying time, taking nothing away from the swimmers who will compete and swim very fast.”
Aiming to get as close as they possibly could to the coveted A standard qualifying time, Alard said it would bring immense pride and joy to the siblings if they were able to stand side by side on the podium at the end of the finals.
Meanwhile, Venter returns for another crack at Olympic qualification as he competes in four events — the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke events, as well as swimming in the 200m freestyle.
Venter 22, who was based in the US where he trained at the University of Hawaii, said it felt great to return to a place that holds so much swimming memories for him.
“A lot has changed and happened since the Olympic qualifiers [in 2016], so I am excited to see what happens.
“I am feeling good and quite strong, so I cannot wait to get into the pool for competition, and see how well the training pays off,” he said.
Head coach Edge said: “We have been very fortunate, in that we have been able to train, despite being limited with time and space, generally all the highly competitive swimmers have had a good buildup to the Olympic trials.”
The 14 member East Cape Aquatics team is: Alard and Alaric Basson, Cameron Casali, Brandon Chapman, Amica de Jager, Bathandwa Dyantyi, Kate Meyer, Matthew Moss, Charl Parkin, JP Seyffert, Liam Vehbi, Ian Venter, Tori Voke and Martin Wolmarans.
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