Ugandan swimmers up for Budapest splash

Tendo Kaumi will get Uganda started off today at the World Championships (25m) in Budapest this week.

Kaumi competes in the men’s 100m backstroke. His aim will be to get anywhere around or under the 59.11 seconds he set at the Hungarian National Championships last month. He will probably want to go under the 58.67 he did at the USF National Swimming Championships in June in Kampala.
 
Kaumi is now based in Budapest, where he is on a World Aquatics scholarship. His individual races end on Thursday, where he will also try to get under the 27.77 he set last month or the 27.44 he managed at the Nationals.

But that will be after namesake Tendo Mukalazi pushes Uganda through the men’s 100m freestyle on Wednesday. Mukalazi is a freestyle trailblazer and the 50.67 he also managed at the Hungarian nationals has never been seen here and is surely a national record.

Mukalazi’s 23.00 in the 50m freestyle, also from Hungary, is equally unprecedented. His 50m free at the Worlds comes on Saturday, the same day his sister Kirabo Namutebi is doing her lone individual event. 

Namutebi, whose 50m free personal best in a short course pool is 25.84 from the World Cup in 2021 in Russia, had initially entered the 100m individual medley but pulled out of it. 

Gloria Muzito completes the team and also has one individual event, the 100m freestyle, where her known best time is 55.45 from 2019 in Sweden. 

Relay options

The quartet also has a chance to bring down the national records in the mixed 4x50 medley and freestyle relays, and also debut in the 4x100m freestyle at this stage. In 2021 in Abu Dhabi, Mukalazi and Namutebi combined with Jesse Ssengonzi and Avice Meya to put those relay NRs at 1:51.67 and 1:41:54 respectively. 

That was the first time Uganda did relays in a world competition. At the time Mukalazi went first, Ssengonzi followed, and the ladies Meya, and Namutebi finished the freestyle relay. 

In the medley relay, Meya did the backstroke with Mukalazi doing the breaststroke. Ssengonzi is a fly specialist and was an easy choice for that leg as was Namutebi for the freestyle. 

This time though, coach Olivia Nalwadda’s decision will be followed interestingly especially. Muzito has focused on freestyle since 2021 but the team also has no one that is strictly doing butterfly. 

If Kaumi takes backstroke, the siblings might have to choose between breaststroke and butterfly. PB form from Kaumi in this arrangement would allow Mukalazi and Namutebi about three seconds to play with if they can swim at the PB speed. Muzito would then have to bring it home with a lower sub-26. 

Muzito could also be a backstroke option as her World Aquatics profile shows she can do it at about 30 seconds – a little faster than Meya did in 2021. Kaumi would then fly and if he got his act right then he would be just over a second the 24.04 split that Ssengonzi managed then. That would allow Mukalazi and Namutebi stay on the legs they did in Abu Dhabi but they would need really fast splits to threaten the national record.

Swimming

World Championships (25m) 2024

Tendo Kaumi

Tuesday: 100m backstroke

Thursday: 50m backstroke

Tendo Mukalazi

Wednesday: 100m freestyle

Saturday: 50m freestyle

Gloria Muzito

Wednesday: 100m freestyle

Kirabo Namutebi

Saturday: 50m freestyle

Wednesday: Mixed 4x50m medley relay

Friday: Mixed 4x50m freestyle relay

Saturday: Mixed 4x100m freestyle relay