FK Blue Marlins join the swimming community
What you need to know:
- The club, which has only six months of its formation, is owned by the F.K International Schools, a co-educational day and boarding preparatory school for children aged two and above.The vision of the school, which is located in Dar Es Salaam, is to provide high quality British-based education within a safe, secure and caring environment, enabling each pupil to achieve their potential.
Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania swimming community is still expanding after the establishment of a new club known as FK Blue Marlins.
The club, which has only six months of its formation, is owned by the F.K International Schools, a co-educational day and boarding preparatory school for children aged two and above.
The vision of the school, which is located in Dar Es Salaam, is to provide high quality British-based education within a safe, secure and caring environment, enabling each pupil to achieve their potential.
Speaking with The Citizen, Grace Sanford, who is the PE teacher, said their school started in 1997 while involving indoor sports like tennis, basketball, and volleyball.
The school also involves swimming but by then it had not competed in events at the national level.
Grace said she joined the school last year from the Morogoro International School (MIS), which owns the Mis Piranhas swimming club.
She said after joining FK International School, she saw potential and talented swimmers who did not compete in events like Taliss-IST swimming championships, Tanzania Swimming Association (TSA) Junior swimming competitions and others.
According to Grace, since its establishment in October last year, they have managed to compete twice in swimming championships.
The first event was the National Junior Championships held last year as they fielded only three swimmers, Judy Walter, Charlotte Sanford and William Sanford.
“We featured in the event with the aim of introducing the club to the Dar es Salaam swimming community. By the time, we did not train for the past six months.
However, we managed to win some points and promote our club. Currently, we have 33 swimmers who are now competing for medals,” said Grace.
She said in the just ended Taliss-IST swimming championships, they finished seventh with 502 points after beating famous clubs like Wahoo of Zanzibar, who finished eighth with 292 points and Champion Rise who were placed ninth with 141 points.
The event also saw two swimmers, Charlotte Sanford winning the silver trophy after collecting 134 points and Ian Lukaza also taking home the silver trophy with 112 points.
“It is a good start for our club. We have managed to build a strong foundation that has started to bear fruit. We have swimmers who can compete as we trained for few months.
“We will continue to scout swimmers as our plan is to promote the club with the aim of producing more swimmers around the community area,” she said.
She said being their school is in Cambridge Curriculum, swimming and other sports, like volleyball, basketball, tennis; football and table tennis are the part of the lessons which aim to scout and develop the athletes’ talents.
“I am very proud to be among the coaches who trained Tanzania’s swimmer, Dennis Mhini, who has been awarded a scholarship and now he is swimming and studying in the United Kingdom’s St Felix School.
“I promise to do the same at the FK International School’s club, “she said.
Grace also thanked the Tanzania Swimming Association (TSA) for the big support that made them exist in the game
“I real appreciate efforts made by TSA for us, they have motivated us to do what is seen in the development of the game despite the challenges,” she said.
