By Oscar Pilipili

Most Kenyans view swimming as an affair of the Dunford brothers, Jason and David.

They pay most of the attention to the siblings due to their outstanding achievements on the global scene and for good reasons anyway.

Together, the Dunfords brought home nine medals from the 2006 Africa Swimming Championships in Senegal in the gold-silver-bronze basis of 4-4-1.

Jason went further to single-handedly harvest eight medals (3-2-3) at the last All Africa Games in Algeria.

And in another performance that further underlined their supremacy in the pool, the Dunfords qualified for the Beijing Olympics, that was a first appearance by any Kenyan at the event through qualification.

.

Keep Reading

Achieng Ajulu-Bushell, Pina Ercolano, Sylvia Brunlehner and Rachita Shah. Photo: File

The trend that has been developing into a tradition has taken a new dimension with the coming into light of women swimmers, thanks to their exploits in the Africa Swimming Championships that ended in South Africa a fortnight ago.

It is the excellent performance of these women that has seen Kenyan swimming go beyond the Dunfords for the first time in three years.

Achieng Ajulu-Bushell started the campaign after she grabbed a 100m freestyle bronze (58.72) that went down in history books as the first for Kenya by a woman at Africa level. Inspired by the result, the swimming prodigy went one step better to win 100m breaststroke gold (1:12.88).

Kenya’ s 400m medley relay team of Ajulu-Bushell, Pina Ercolano, Rachita Shah Sylvia Brunlehner also announced their arrival on the world stage, bagging a bronze medal in the event in a time of 4:16.33.

If there should be evidence of a bright future, the recent exploits of the local swimmers perfectly fit the bill.

Kenya Swimming Federation (KSF) treasurer David Ngugi said: "That our girls have started to win medals is something to celebrate about because that means we’ll be getting more medals in Championships."

He added: "We can now talk of a strong and wider base of swimmers able to win us medals." To coach Mansoor Fakhry, this is just a prelude to what is to come of the Kenyan youngsters in future.

"All our girls are still young, just under-20, and you can imagine how they will perform in the next two to three years," Fakhry said.

Fakhry said the men are no different from women and they still have time to match the Dunfords. "Ramadhan Vyombo is good but he competed against more experienced swimmers in South Africa," he said.

"Akshay Shah is a fantastic young swimmer with more room for improvement," Fakhry said.

Kenya has been picked to host the 2010 Championships and officials are certain local athletes would capitalise on home advantage to win more medals.