SUVA, ( FIJI TIMES) – FIJI Swimming is looking into organising open water competition for the local swimmers in the near future.
President Ben Rova said it was always a challenge for the swimmers but they needed to start to have such competitions.
“For open water competition we do not have any programs and this is something which we would like to start with some open water competition,” he said.
“We need to look into it. At the moment most of our swimmers are focused in pool events. This is because we do not have many open water competition expect for one. We need to work with the organisers to have at least three events which would encourage the young swimmers.
“Sea water is a challenge for the swimmers with some had lost caps and goggles in the rough sea in the 10 kilometres of race compared to the calm water in the pool. We need to have a lot of stamina to fight against the waves.”
Australia dominated in the 10 km open sea competition in the 2016 Oceania Swimming Championship which finished last Saturday in Suva.
Rova said they needed funds to send their swimmers overseas for training.
“We want some sort of consistency funding in sending these swimmers on a development program. Government had made it clear that they will only support those federation that has transparent policy in place and the plans they have are materialising results,” he added.
“We are working on that we have not reached there. A core of swimmers swam in the Pacific Games already in the past.
