Sports

Dar es Salaam swimmer in action on Tuesday

TANZANIAN swimmer, Ammaar Ghadiyali, will compete in the men's 100m freestyle at the Aquatics Centre in London's Olympic Park on Tuesday.

The 15-years old swimmer, who joined the team on the eleventh hours, will be up against swimmers from Burundi, Mali and Maldives in Heat 1. From Burundi is Binobagira Beni Bertrand and from Mali is Soumare Mamadou while Husam Ahmed of Maldives completes the heat.
       
 Ahead of the games, Ammaar promised to perform wonders in the quadrennial event game as he said he was energetically fit to compete in the game. Ghadiyali is the youngest member of the Tanzanian team that is taking part in this year's Olympic Games in London.

Another Tanzania swimmer, Magdalena Moshi, who also features for Clovercrest club in Adelaide, Australia, will be in action tomorrow, competing in the women's 100m freestyle. The 21-year-old's time for 100 metres was 1:05:98 minutes and come June she had improved to 1:05:11 minutes. Current world record holder is Germany's Britta Steffen who clocked 52.07 seconds at World Championships in Rome July 2009.

Tanzania launched its 2012 London Olympics Games campaign on a wrong note when the local welter weight boxer, Selemani Kidunda lost his bout against Vasilii Belous from the Republic of Moldova. Kidunda lost the round of 32 bout by 7-20 points and waved goodbye to the perennial games, only to vindicate concerns over poor preparations afforded to local athletes ahead of the games.

Belous took the bout, officiated by five judges, at his own pace, landing plenty of scoring punches in the first round to establish a six-point lead. The Moldovan extended his lead by two points, before a devastating final round that saw him stun the Tanzanian pugilist with a speedy left-right combination.

The judges, RysbaYev Rakhymzhan from Kazakhstan, Kennedy Jones from Brazil, Scharmach Frank (Germany), Llaurado David (USA) and  de Castro Dante (Philippines)  confirmed Belous's superiority with a 20-7 scoreline.

For many years Tanzania's medal hopes have been banked on boxing and athletics and Kidunda's defeat has all but casted a big cloud on the ability of the country's athletes to bring back medals.