District 11 seeking to make successful defence of swimming title

DISTRICT 11 (North Georgetown) will be seeking to make a successful defence of the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU)/Ministry of Education (MoE)/Digicel Schools Swimming Championship title which swims off at 09:00hrs today at the Castellani Swimming Pool, Homestretch Avenue.Having won the title for five consecutive years, District 11 swimmers will be a confident bunch going into today’s competition and moreso, they will be hoping their top swimmers can replicate their performances from last year.
According to team manager, Mark Wilson, the swimmers have been hard at training and “just rearing to go.”
Wilson said some of the swimmers, who were a part of last year’s winning team, will be in action today.
Among the swimmers are national swimmers Britney Van Lange, Hannibal Gaskin, Sarah King, Omani Dunn, Onika George, Jamina Sammagan, Accalia Khan, and Dylan Nurse.
With such swimmers on their team, there is no reason why District 11 cannot pull off their sixth consecutive title at the championships.
Meanwhile, District 11 is not just hoping to win the swimming championship, but the overall Champion of Champions title which they won last year.
Apart from the swimming championship today, there will also be the 40K cycling road races for boys and girls, as well as the 10K (foot) road races for boys and girls as well.
District 6 (Corentyne) will be defending the 40K cycle road race title with the likes of Marcia Dick (girls) and Neil Reece (boys) in contention.
District 11 won four of the last six Champion of Champions titles and like District 10 (Upper Demerara/Kwakwani) won the title 13 times overall.
District 6 won the overall title on six occasions and promised to make it a seventh this year.
District 11’s sports representative, Mariska Williams, is optimistic about her team’s chances of retaining the overall title.
She said she is expecting more competition this year than any other and her athletes are pumped up for any eventuality “we are very confident” Williams stated, adding “the cycling and teachers’ teams are good enough to place in the top five.
Williams said preparations leading up to the championships went well and it is now up to the athletes to play their part.

(By Michael DaSilva)