USSA Swimming Championships returns to UP-TUKS

This year marks the 16th edition of the Championships and promises to be a thrilling event, featuring 170 swimmers from 10 universities.

The hosts have been USSA Swimming Champs for close to a decade, so it remains to be seen if home ground advantage will work in their favour.

Swimming enthusiasts are in for a treat as some of South Africa’s most well-known and promising swimmers will compete in this national showdown. The event is open to the public and there is no entrance fee.

In another first, this year’s USSA Swimming Championships will be streamed live on the SuperSport Schools platform.

The following universities will be represented at the Championships:

• University of the Western Cape

• Stellenbosch University

• University of the Free State

• University of KwaZulu-Natal

• Nelson Mandela University

• North West University – Potchefstroom

• University of Pretoria

• University of Cape Town

• IIE Varsity College

• University of Witwatersrand

“The Paris Olympic Games has once again highlighted that swimming is one of the sports that consistently deliver medals for South Africa on the international stage,” says Carole Adam, Chairperson of USSA Aquatics. “Many SA Olympic swimmers came through local university swimming programsand USSA Swimming Champs plays an important part in the development of our future stars.”

“USSA Swimming Champs is not only about identifying new talent, but also about the university swimming community coming together to celebrate our sport and love for swimming. The USSA gala is unique in that swimmers are not only chasing their personal bests, but students are also focused on accumulating the most points for their university team and take home the converted trophy,” adds Adam.

The USSA Swimming Championship gala will be run according to Swimming South Africa and World Aquatic rules. Swimmers may enter a maximum of six individual events and compete in a total of 14, including relays.

Points will be awarded for the top 16 places in each event. Relays counting double the points of individual. Mixed relay points will be divided and allocated to both men’s and women’s scores.

The overall trophy will be awarded to the university with the highest combined scores in both the men’s and women’s competitions and medals will be awarded to the top 3 universities.

In 2023, the University of Pretoria (UP-Tuks) clinched the championship title with a score of 1 404 points. Stellenbosch University (Maties) secured second place with 1 082 points, followed closely by Varsity College in third with 810 points.

There are prestigious individual awards up for grabs for both men and women, namely, the highest World Aquatic’s point scorer in a single event and the Highest Points Award (MVP) for the top three swimmers, who accrue the highest tallies across six individual events. Previous winner of these awards is UP-Tuksalumna and Olympic gold medallist, Tatjana Smith.

Host-university UP-Tuks’ Head Coach and Team SA Coach, Rocco Meiring emphasized the importance of the championships, saying, “The USSA Championships are pivotal in bridging the gap between our talented youth swimmers and the senior national teams that compete at the Commonwealth Games, World Championships, and Olympic Games. USSA plays a critical role in our country’s performance on the international stage.”

Among the swimmers to watch at this year’s championships are:

Erin Gallagher: (UP-Tuks)

• Paris 2024 Olympic semi-finalist

• 4x World University silver medallist (2023)

• 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist

• 3x African Record holder

Hannah Pearse: (UP-Tuks)

• 2023 World University Games finalist (200m backstroke)

• 2024 World Championships (Doha) semi-finalist (200m backstroke)

• Marenostrum Monaco 200m backstroke gold medallist

Sinelithemba Mbatha: (UP-Tuks)

• Africa Games 2019 finalist

• Region u21 Games 2021 silver medallist

• BRICS Games 2024 finalist

Ben Plattner: (UP-Tuks)

• Africa Championships 2024 Team South Africa qualifier

• Bronze medallist in the 4x100m freestyle relay at the Africa Championships in Angola

• Gold medallist in the medley relay at the Africa Championships in Egypt

• Top finalist in the 200m and 100m butterfly events at the Amsterdam Swim Cup Circuit

• Qualified for the World University Games in China

Andrew Ross (UP-Tuks)

• Relay finalists for Team SA at Birmingham Commonwealth Games

• Semi-finalist at the World University Games 2023 in China

Liam Vehbi (UP-Tuks)

• BRICS Games Gold medallist

• African Games 2x Bronze medallist

• ⁠2 x USSA record holder

Kristen Henry (Maties)

• Medallist at World Transplant Games 2019

Tilka Paljk (Maties)

• Participated in multiple World Champs, Commonwealth Games, African Champs and represented Zambia at the Olympic Games 2021

Sune Liebenberg (WITS)

2 X Gold medallist at Junior African Games in 2017. After a long break from the sport, this will be Sune’s first USSA gala.

All the action will take place at the Tuks Aquatics Complex, Hillcrest Sport Campus, Pretoria:

• Session 1, Fri 6 Sep: Warm-up from 8h30; Gala starts at 9h30 until 11h30

• Session 2, Fri 6 Sep – Warm-up from 16h00; Gala starts at 17h00 until 19h00

• Session 3, Sat 7 Sep – Warm-up from 8h00; Gala starts at 9h00 until 11h00

• Session 4, Sat 7 Sep – Warm-up from 14h30; Gala starts at 15h30 until 17h30. Prizegiving at the pool17h45