•ZAMBIA’S Ralph Goveia (right) takes a dive into the pool for the 50 metres breaststroke during the ongoing AUSC Youth Games at Bulawayo Municipal Pool in Zimbabwe yesterday. Picture by SHAMAOMA MUSONDA

From SHAMAOMA MUSONDA In Bulawayo –
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD swimmer Tilka Paljk yesterday broke the 100m breaststroke national record after timing three seconds faster as swimming got underway at the Africa Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region Five Youth Games.
Paljk, a bronze medal winner from the last edition of the games held in Lusaka, timed 1:17.72 minutes in the 100m breaststroke as she finished third in her heat and overall fourth fastest after all heats.
It was a good day in the pool for the Zambians as four swimmers reached the finals to brighten chances of winning more medals.
But the star of the Zambian swimmers yesterday was Alex Axiotis who qualified to two finals to give the Zambian fans, who included the entire football coaching bench led by Hector Chilombo, something to cheer about after winning all his heats.
Axiotis won the 50m backstroke heat with a time of 30.58 seconds, which was marginally better than fellow Zambian Ralph Goveia, who finished second in his heat of the same competition with both making it to the final.
He also made the final of the 100m backstroke after finishing fourth in his heat with a time of 1:04.30 minutes and got rated seventh for the finals.
“I am really happy with my qualification to the finals. There are some really fast swimmers here but I shall fight on and I want to do something for Zambia especially in my favourite butterfly category,” he said.
Paljk was equally excited with her performance after setting a personal best which also become the new national record.
“I have a new personal best and that really exciting especially that it is also the new national record. I am pretty sure I will improve that time again in the final and I really want to win a medal,” she said
Chef-de-Mission Gibson Muyaule said the performance of the various athletes here showed that Zambia was on the right track in preparing the athletes for the various future international competitions.
“We are on the right track in developing quality athletes for big events in the near future starting with next year’s All-Africa Games (AAG) in Congo Brazzaville. Here, we have medals already from judo, boxing and we should be getting more from other sports like athletics, swimming and probably tennis,” he said.