The Pretoria and entire Gauteng masters’ swimming athletes are preparing for the Tshwane Masters Championships scheduled for the end of February and South Africa’s National Championships taking place in March in Johannesburg.
As part of the preparation, more than 80 athletes from Gauteng gathered at Hillcrest Swimming Pool in Hatfield on Saturday to participate in the 6 Hour Endurance Swimming Challenge.
These swimmers were members of the following masters’ swimming clubs – Coelacanth, Players, Phoenix, Wahoo and Eastern Stingrays.
Coelacanth and Players masters’ swimming clubs are the local teams.
An event organiser, Owen van Renen, said the event, which was staged for athletes swimming between four and 16 kilometres, was the best way to start the swimming season.
“You can feel terrible when you participate in this event but two days later you feel great when you get back into the pool again,” Van Renen said.
He said the gala gets you started and motivated.
The event was more of a social, most swimmers enjoyed meeting each other again since the last gala in November last year.
