Kenyan swimmers reign supreme

Loreto Convent’s Samantha Hawala during the East Africa secondary school games in Arusha, Tanzania. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

Kenyans maintained their dominance in the pool to retain their overall East Africa Schools swimming title.

The Kenyan boys and girls were unrivaled in the pool winning both title and maintain a 100 percent win record since the introduction of the sport in 2014.

The boys’ team garnered 545 points while the girls scored 531 to emerge tops with a total of 1,150 points.

Uganda were second with 1,019, Rwanda third with 278, while hosts Tanzania finished fourth with 144. 

Kenya bagged 52 medals; 23 gold, 19 silver and 10 bronze to beat Uganda, who finished second with a total of 46.

Aheer Chatterjee and Jerome Waudo splashed to gold and silver in boys’ 200m Individual Medley.

Chatterjee won gold in a time of two minutes 30.34 seconds, while Waudo settled for silver in 2:38.12. Uganda’s Ampaire Namanya was third in a time of 2:41.00.

In the girls’ 50m butterfly contest, Kenya’s Nicole Makau and Trima Makena snatched the top two spots in a time of 34.67 and 35.92 Uganda’s Mariam Tendo was third.

In the boys’ junior 50m Butterfly race, Kenya’s Stephen Ndegwa won in a time of 27.35 with his closest challenger Cedric Niyibisi of Rwanda coming second in 2.09. Twaib Hamza of Kenya completed the podium in 29.90.

Mazrui Abdalla of Kenya won the senior boys’ 50m breaststroke in a time of 31.34 with his compatriot Esmail Abdalla taking silver in 35.43 while Uganda’s Regan Atire won bronze in a time of 36.13.

Hawala Samantha won gold in the senior girls’ 100m breaststroke after touching the boards in 1:24.75.