Namutebi leads Ugandan cast at Cana Swim Camp

Kirabo Namutebi leads a team of seven Ugandan swimmers that travelled to Mbombela, South Africa for the timely Cana world champions’ preparation training camp.

Namutebi, a Cana (Africa Swimming) junior and senior medallist, will be known to most of the swimmers from other countries that have competed with her at regional, continental and international level.

But she is in the good company of her Gators’ teammates; Tara Kisawuzi – a butterfly national record holder in short course swimming and Swagiah Mubiru – a breaststroker to reckon with plus Silverfin Academy’s Karla Mugisha.

Butterfly swimmer Ben Kaganda is captaining the team but also leads the men’s team that has Raphael Musoke and breaststroker Ampaire Namanya, whose 1:14.16 time in the 100m breast and 2:51.04 were ranked 47th and 42nd in last year’s Africa’s Top 50 performances per event.

Uganda had 24 swimmers across all styles and distances in the rankings.

This, the increased medals at regional and continental level plus the performance of swimmers like Jesse Ssengonzi at the World Championships (short course where he beat the event’s 100m fly B qualification time and a host of African swimmers), shows the country is going toe-to-toe with the rest of the continent.

“We would have wanted to have more swimmers – maybe 15 of our top athletes – in the camp but most of them are unavailable,” Uganda Swimming Federation (USF) president Moses Mwase told Daily Monitor as they look to consolidate and extend their influence.

Ssengonzi and Adnan Kabuye, who are in the USA plus Tendo Mukalazi (Hungary) and Fadhil Saleh – who both have school commitments are huge misses at the camp but will all look forward to making the Olympics in Paris next year.

“The camp is helping us train and offer a chance to our top swimmers to interact with the best coaches in Africa and other elite swimmers on the continent ahead of major competitions.

It would have been nice to have some of our coaches accompany them but we did not have the finances to do that. 

Swimmers in Camp

Women: Kirabo Namutebi, Karla Mugisha, Swagiah Mubiru, Tara Kisawuzi

Men: Ben Kaganda, Raphael Musoke, Ampaire Namanya