Times Of Swaziland: BLOW FOR SWIM LAB WINTER CHAMPS

BLOW FOR SWIM LAB WINTER CHAMPS
================================================================================
Ntokozo Magongo on 26/03/2020 08:28:00


MBABANE – Swim Lab winter Championships have been washed away by the
coronavirus outbreak.
The swimming competition was to be attended by swimmers from clubs coming from
Mpumalanga, Botswana, Mozambique and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Swim Lab coach Welcome
Nhlabatsi confirm yesterday that they had no choice but to cancel the
championships. This is the third event for swimming to be called off after the
COVID-19 outbreak. Swim Lab had to cancel their trip to Newcastle, South Africa
for the South Africa Level competitions and the schools gala was called off last
week. The winter championships were to be held in the country for the first
time.
Precautions
“We had to call off the winter championships due to the coronavirus. We are
taking precautions concerning the virus and the warning from the sports
authorities. The decision was based on safety first and we have alerted all the
clubs that were invited over the calling off of the competitions,” said
Nhlabatsi. The championships were to be sponsored by Viva Beverages as they are
partners of the club based at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) Sports
Emporium. “We want to thank Viva for the sponsorship. We sat down with the
sponsor and we agreed to call off the gala which was meant to be on the first
weekend of June. The sponsor is still on board and we are looking at hosting the
competition maybe in August as the first competition of next season, if the
situation allows though,” he added.
Sad
“It’s sad but what can we do. We were working hard preparing for the
competition. We want it to be an annual event. Like I had complained about not
having competition in the country, this would have been a good test for my
swimmers to gauge their standard against the world at home. We just pray and
hope that the coronavirus is brought under control,” he concluded.
Swim Lab also suspended their training session due to the outbreak and luckily
their season was already over having hosted the national championships a
fortnight ago.