Talons find antidote for their slide

Talons captain Abigail Mwagale said she and coach Musa Galabuzi had to rally the team to do better with their personal bests (PBs) in order to sustain their leadership in the Uganda Swimming League (USL).

For nearly a month, the leaders struggled to keep up with their competitors in the PBs challenge and they saw an over 700 points’ gap eaten into despite their relative prowess in relays.

But for the last two weeks including the 37th of 40 matches held last Friday, Talons have greatly improved in that aspect.

“We noticed that not getting PBs was our biggest problem and shared it with everyone, we just asked them to go harder and focus on lowering their times,” Mwagale said.

But those improvements came in the butterfly and backstroke 50m races. This coming Friday will present a tougher challenge to Talons and Astros as they mostly struggle in the breaststroke events that will dominate match 38.

Whether that will propel Colts remains to be seen. Colts had worked their way back into the mix over a week ago when they lessened the gap to 290 points but a few absences last Friday saw them fall back 410 points away from the top.

When relay points per stroke were added across all Razors, Colts showed superiority in backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly in match 36 while Talons dominated freestyle.

But for match 37, Talons dominated across all Razors although they shared freestyle with Astros. Colts paled everywhere and will need a full house to challenge this week.

UGANDA SWIMMING LEAGUE

OVERALL STANDINGS

Talons – 21,550

Astros – 21,400

Colts – 20,990

MATCH 37 POINTS

Category         Talons Astros Colts

PBs                  250      270      190

Razor 1            300      180      240

Razor 2            220      280      220

Razor 3            280      220      220     

Razor 4            080      160      120

Total                1,130   1,110   990