Africa Aquatics News July 2020 Volume 4 No 1 Message from the President SPORT HAS A MAJOR ROLE IN COMBATTING AND CONTAINING COVID-19 redesigned the 2020 International Despite the suspension of swimming calendar. competitions, the first quar- The Durban African Championships, ter of 2020 was eventful with the Tokyo Olympics and the Abu the hosting of the zone 2 Dhabi World Short Course Champi- and 4 championships respec- onships have all been postponed. tively in Accra (record par- Consequence: the swimmers have no ticipation of 17 nations) and particular objective in 2020 as far as Gaborone (12 countries) in resumption of official competitions addition to the three legs of before the months of November or the GP competitions in South December 2020 at the earliest. This Africa and the participation has never happened before in the his- of African swimmers in inter- tory of sport and as much as we national meetings or national know in that of aquatic sports. The championships in Europe, health and sports authorities have Asia or in the USA. acted correctly by suspending all This new edition of the CA- Dr Sam Ramsamy CANA President competitions in order to preserve the NA newsletter aims mainly at health of the athletes and that of the bringing you back the memo- public. We all hope that the conse- rable and unforgettable mo- The world has been now turned quences of the coronavirus on the ments experienced in 2019: upside down as a result of the pre- organization of sport and the eco- FINA World Championships sent endemic. Our behaviourable nomic difficulties for clubs, athletes in Gwangju and Budapest, pattern has drastically altered. Our and fragile federations will not be too African games in Morocco, way of life has taken a different hard. African junior championships turn. All this as a result of the un- The various sports structures will in Tunis-Bizerte, Summer kown enemy that is lingered around have to consider the reorganization Universiade in Naples, the us. of competitions at the end of this cri- 1st African U 16 water polo championship in Cairo and Further, the incidents of the death sis because, yes, there will be again national, continental and international the 1st African beach games of George Floyd in the United in Cape Verde. Wishing you States has demanded us to look competitions after the coronavirus. Our champions together with their all good health, stay safe and back into our mirror. The estab- see you soon around the lished norms do not seem to guide support staff will bounce back and will us any more. Our moral compass continue to amaze us, as it was the pools. has been transposed to examine in case during the last decade 2011- greater detail the meaning of unity 2020. During the lockdown period Dr Sam Ramsamy in diversity. jogging, swimming, running, walking and sports in general have become Although our way if life has been ways to fight viruses. There will cer- transformed, all of us want to re- tainly be more sports for health in the CANA President turn to normality in swimming. And future. Sport is the best remedy to FINA Vice-President the Covid-19 crisis has completely defeat viruses. IOC Member Africa Aquatics News Contents of the Newsletter: July 2020 1. Message from the President. 2. The African participation in the FINA World championships in Gwangju 2019. 3. All Africa Games, Casablanca 2019 and a comparison of the number of entries by event from 1991-2019. 4. The African participation at the FINA World Junior championships in Budapest and the history of the participation of African swimmers from 2006-2019. 5. CANA African Junior Championships, Tunis 2019. 6. 1st CANA African U 16 Water Polo Championships, Cairo 2019. 7. The African participation at the Summer Universiade, Naples 2019 8. 1st Beach African Games ,Cap Verde 2019 9. A comparison of the winners performances in Algiers 2018 and Casa- blanca 2019 All Africa Games. 10. Participation of the African Countries in : ALL Africa Games 2019, Af- rican Championships 2018 ,FINA junior World championships 2019, FINA World Championships SC 2018 ,FINA LC World championships 2019 , Youth Olympic Games 2018 ,CANA juniors African Champion- ships 2019 and Youth African Games 2018. 11. List of the New African records broken in 2019-2020 SC and LC and Juniors LC. 12. Statistics of the new Championships Records bettered in 2028-2019 (African events) 13. List of the African swimmers having achieved the FINA A and B stand- ards times for the Olympic Games 2022. 14. Focus on Ali Gharbi (TUN). 15. Comparison of African Records LC by decade 1989-1999-2009-2019. 16. Comparison of the Top performances by CANA Zones . 17. All CANA Records updated. Page 2 Africa Aquatics Aquatics - 18th World Championships News July 12-28, 2019 in Gwangju (KOR) The exceptional achievement of rida Osman (EGY) were the only women African Waddell and Schoenmaker swimmers to be on the podium in a world champi- onship (50m). Once more, Osman was brilliant in Gwangju as she was in Budapest 2017 by winning each time the bronze medal on 50m butterfly. It was on the 28th July, the last day of the world championships that African swimming had a memo- rable day with the surprise world title won by Zane Waddell (21) on 50m backstroke in 24.43, the best world performance of the season. 12 years later, Waddell walked in the footsteps of his compatriot, the excellent Gerhard Zandberg, crowned world champion in the same distance on the 1st April 2007 in Melbourne. Waddell also becomes the 7th Afri- can swimmer to win a world title in a 50m pool af- ter his compatriots Le Clos, Schoeman, Van Der Burgh, Zandberg, Coventry (ZIM) and Mellouli Tatjana Schoenmaker (RSA) (TUN). 224 athletes from 44 nations (record) participated in the world aquatics championships held in Gwangju (KOR). South Africa and Egypt performed as expected and won 5 medals: 1 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze in addition to two places in finals and four places in semi-finals (swimming and diving). The 18th edition of the World Championships (50m) has once again confirmed the constant pres- ence of the African continent on the podiums since July 23, 2001 in Fukuoka (JPN) with the first African medal in history won by Roland Schoeman on 50m FS. Africa has won a total of 53 medals in world championships (50m) from 1973 to 2019: 18 gold, 13 silver and 22 bronze with the lion's share going Zane Waddell (RSA) to South Africa (62.26%) ahead of Zimbabwe (16.98%), Tunisia (15.09%) and Egypt (5.66%). South African women swimming was blessed in Two podiums for Chad Le Clos Gwangju with a first medal in a 50m pool won by Tatjana Schoenmaker in the 200m breaststroke in Even though he was not at his best, Chad Le Clos 2:22.51 after breaking the African record in the was indeed the engine of African swimming with semifinals in 2: 21.79. July 26, 2019 will remain a two bronze medals in the 100m (51.16) and 200m historic date for South African female swimming butterfly (1:54.15). Le Clos brings his medal record even though other breaststrokers such as Penny to 7: 4 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze and remains the Heyns, Sarah Poewe and Suzan Van Biljon have al- most titled African swimmer while his teammate ready won Olympic or world titles (25m pool). Be- Cameron Van Der Burgh holds the highest number fore Schoenmaker, Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) and Fa- Page 3 Africa Aquatics Progress in Diving, Artistic Swimming & News Water Polo of podiums 10: 2 gold, 3 Silver and 5 Bronze. nent with her great performance on the 3m The South African breaststrokers reached 2 finals; springboard where she reached the semi-finals Tatjana Schoenmaker 6th in 100m breaststroke with a score of 268,300. The Egyptian Maha Ab- (1:06.60) and Kaylen Corbett 8th in 200m breast- dessalem confirmed her progress on the 10m high stroke in 2:26.62. Three Egyptian swimmers were diving and ranked 24th out of 38 improving by 12 in the top 16, they qualified for the semi-finals: Ali places her ranking in the 2017 worlds champion- Khalafallah 13th on 50m FS (21.98), Mohamed ships (36th out of 37). Amongst the men, Mohab Samy Hassan 16th on 50m backstroke (25.16) and Ishak (EGY) who finished 27th out of 57 on 3m Abderrahmane El Araby 16th on 50m butterfly. In springboard and Youssef Ezzat (EGY) who was addition to Schoenmaker's African record on the 29th out of 47 on 10m high diving were the wor- 200m breaststroke, two other new continental thy representatives of Africa. records have been improved by the South African In artistic swimming, the Egyptian selection con- relay teams: 4x100m FS Women (3:43.35) and firmed its continental supremacy with honorable 4x100m mixed medley ranks in the team technical trials, 16th out of 23 (3:49.90). According to the Fina World Champion- nations and in free 17th out of 27 nations. ship ranking by country, South Africa finished 15th In water polo the South African teams have con- with 86 points ahead of Egypt 29th with 21 points firmed their progress in a very tough competition; out of the 47 nations with a ranking. The South they had the merit of finishing 12th out of 16 for African Elite did better than in 2017 (22nd), 2015 men and 14th out of 16 for women. The coaches (17th) and 2013 (16th).