By Iva Wharton
Fresh from the London Olympics, Britany van Lange is one of 27 swimmers who will represent Guyana at the 2012 Goodwill Swimming Championship being held locally at the National Aquatic Centre from Friday, August 17 to 19.
The 15-year-old Bishops’ High School student, who registered a time of 1:01:62s in the 100 metres freestyle at the just-concluded Olympic Games, has an opportunity to show the kind of training she was exposed to in preparation for the Olympics, how much she has learned and how much it will enhance her performance starting on Friday.
Van Lange’s personal best time is 1:01:39 in the 100 metres freestyle.
Other notable swimmers representing Guyana will be female Captain Soroya Simmons, Athena Gaskin, Onika George and Joseph Seguina.
Guyana’s team manager Jean La Rose in an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sports said, “We are counting on them because they all have some exposure at previous Goodwill competitions and the Inter-Guiana Games while others competed in the Trinidad National Competition which is held annually in December. So I am expecting that they will be the ones leading the team when it comes to medalling and I am not saying if, but when.”
Asked about the team’s preparation, La Rose said that it was coming along pretty good. “They usually have a two-day land training conditioning workout where they do stretch work and different things. Right now they are winding down so their workout is both in the pool and on land and training is not as long as it would have been a few weeks or months ago.”
La Rose, however, said that while training facilities are usually a problem for swimmers in the city, the out of town swimmers who made the team are at a further disadvantage as they lack pool and gym facilities to enhance and develop their talent.
“The time was very short, especially for the out of town swimmers as they would have had to be working on the land conditioning programme and pool work to be at the same level. But I think they have come around nicely.”
The manager said that Guyana does not have the full complement of swimmers for the championship. Guyana is short of swimmers in the 13 to 14 and 8 and under categories. Guyana also does not have a team to contest the 8 and under relays.
“While we tried to include as many swimmers, we have quality teams coming with good times as well and I don’t want our swimmers to be a pool length behind when the penultimate swimmer comes in,” she said.
