Papua New Guinea Swimming Inc. (PNGSI) has a full year ahead with local and international events lined up every month, including the Rio Olympic Games.
PNG swimmers have been invited to take part in various Australia tournaments to help our swimmers gain international exposure.
PNGSI highlighted the year will kick off with the Victoria State Championships at Melbourne, Australia next weekend from 22-24 January.
In March, a team will be sent to attend the New South Wales State Championship from 4-7 March at Sydney and the Australian Age Championships (AAC) from 28 March-4 April at Adelaide.
After the AAC, the team will attend the Australian Championships from 7-14 April at Adelaide.
Swimmers throughout the country will later converge on Port Moresby to participate in the annual Theodist National Championships from 22-24 April. This is an International Swimming Federation (FINA) approved meet.
In June, local swimmers will take part in the Dolphin Sprint competition hosted by Boroko Amateur Swimming Club in the first weekend of the month with more than 100 swimmers expected to compete.
An elite squad will then represent the country at the Oceania Championships at Suva, Fiji from 21-25 June.
The Rio Olympics is the next big event from 5-21 August in Brazil with super fish Ryan Pini our only swimmer qualified so far to represent PNG.
After the Olympics, there’s the TNT National Championships at Moresby from 30 September- 2 October and then the Australia Short Course Championships at Brisbane from 1-5 November.
The year will end with the 4th FINA World Aquatic Convention from 3-5 Dec and the 13th FINA World Championships from the 6-11 Dec. Both events will be staged at Windsor in Canada.
PNGSI president Liz Wells stated that they’ll be looking forward to qualifying four more swimmers for the Olympics including Sam Seghers, Stanford Kawale and Tegan McCarthy.