KARACHI: Some 274 contestants, the largest number of female participants in any sporting discipline here, from 19 teams made a splash at the Karachi Club Annexe swimming pool as the two-day 26th Palmolive Sindh Women’s Swimming Championship, organised by the Karachi Women’s Swimming Association, commenced here on Saturday.
Among the 19 teams, namely Academia Civitas Nixor, Bahria College Karachi, Bahria College Karsaz, Bayview Academy, Beacon House School, Beaconhouse School DHA Campus, British Overseas School, DA College for Women, Haque Academy, Hira Foudation School, Karachi American School, Karachi Club, Karachi Grammar School, Karachi Gymkhana Club, Links, The CAS School, The City School PAF Chapter, The Intellect School and a team of independent participants, KGS is the defending champion for several years now.
Day one of the championship saw eight records broken with the two being created early in the day by Zaha Ahmed Shaikh of KGS and Arisha Lari of Karachi American School.Two records broken in the age group of 15 to 16 years200M Freestyle: Zaha Ahmed Shaikh, KAS New Time: 2:28:58. Previous time was set at 2:34:66.100M Freestyle: Zaha Ahmed Shaikh, KASNew Time: 1:07:70. Previous time was set at 1:08:31.
The two girls should be rivals coming from different schools of the city but they told Dawn that they were the best of friends. Speaking to Dawn, later another of their good friends, 13-year-old Zaaria Butt, also a gold medal winner who swims in the 14-and-under age group for KGS, said that the friends together with some others including her trained together every day without fail. “We train before as well as after school,” she provided. So if school started at 7.30am what time did they train before that? “Five to 7am,” she replied.
“Me and my friends train with at Zaha Ahmed Shaikh’s private 50 metres pool at her place every morning, including Saturdays and Sundays,” she said.
Zaaria was with her other training friends Arisha Lari (a record breaker) and Sasha Mir who had won a silver medal in 200 metres freestyle, in the 14-and-under age group. All three girls were aged 13, making this time their disadvantage year as they are competing with several other girls who are one year older than them. And yet they won medals.
Results:
Five records broken in age group 13 to 14 years
100M Medley Relay: Karachi Grammar School
New Time: 5:22:13. Previous time was set at 5:33:43.
100M Backstroke: Aminah Alavi, KGS
New Time: 1:12:98. Previous time was set at 1:13:64.
50M Backstroke (in the heats): Arisha Lari, KAS
New Time: 33:06 Previous time was set at 34:42.
100M Butterfly: Arisha Lari, KAS
New Time: 1:15:08. Previous time was set at 1:19:92.
200M IM: Aminah Alavi, KGS
New Time: 2:48:99. Previous time was set at 2:49:15.
One record broken in open age group
100M Medley Relay: KGS
New Time: 5:12:89. Previous time was set at 5:19:02.
Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2018
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