BY MAGRETH RUZVIDZO Zimbabwe’s Nomvula Mjimba won her heat and set a new personal best time, but failed to make it to the 50m freestyle semi-finals at the 19th FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Mjimba finished in a time of 28.13 seconds, but they fell off the mark for a berth in the next stage.
Like in the 100m freestyle where she recorded her personal best time, Mjimba yesterday also improved her time compared with her previous best time of 28.38 seconds.
Zimbabwe was represented by three swimmers at the championships.
On Wednesday, team coach Masi Takaedza was impressed by Mjimba’s performance, highlighting that she had the fastest reaction off the blocks in the 100m freestyle event and hoped that she would maintain the performance.
Takaedza also expressed satisfaction with his team, which achieved its targets of improving on its times.
All the swimmers managed to improve their personal best times except for Katai in the 200m backstroke event, where she finished tenth in a time of 1 minute 4.80 seconds and was placed number 33 out of 43 swimmers from five heats.
Katai failed to improve from her entry time of 1 minute 02.73 seconds, a personal best time she recorded last year at the Tokyo Olympics.
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However, she made a turnaround in her 50m backstroke on Tuesday, where she finished in 29.81 seconds compared to her 30.17 seconds entry time.
On Wednesday, Mjimba was the first to compete in the 100m freestyle, where she came out seventh in a time of 1 minute 02.20 seconds in heat 3 and was ranked 42 out of 63 in nine heats.
Her previous personal best time was 1 minute 02.55 seconds.
Davis also finished seventh in a time of 2 minutes 19.62 seconds in the 200m breaststroke and was ranked an overall position of 32 out of 40 in five heats.
This was again his personal best time compared to his 2 minutes 19.79 seconds entry time.
Going forward, Takaedza said there was need for more training time in order to match international standards.
“We need to continue training. We always have problems in winter because there are few heated pools in the country. It’s very expensive to train throughout the year, which is what we need at this level,” he said.
The championships, which commenced on June 18, will run up to July 3.
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