Five Championship Records Fall in a Single Morning as Gio Cocci Rewrites the Zone IV Book in Gaborone

Records for South Africa, Namibia and Seychelles across the 200m Breaststroke and 200m Backstroke; Namibia collects 15 medals in a session, and Tyla Thomas answers two difficult days with a record of her own

GABORONE, Botswana – 3 September 2026 – The Day 2 morning session of the XXII Africa Aquatics Zone IV Swimming Championships will be remembered as the morning the record book was rewritten. Across sixteen 200m finals in breaststroke and backstroke, five Zone IV championship records were broken, three of them by South African swimmers, one by Namibia's Oelof Badenhorst and one by Seychelles' 11-year-old Conrad Opperman. Four more swims finished within a second of the existing marks. In a session where only 64 of 180 swimmers bettered their seed times, the swimmers at the very front of the field were operating at a level this championship has not seen before.

Cocci takes seven seconds off a nine-year-old record

Gio Cocci had already made the pool sit up on Wednesday evening with a 57.98 in the 100m Backstroke, faster than any swimmer of any age. On Thursday morning he went further. His 2:09.84 in the Boys 13-14 200m Backstroke did not just break the championship record of 2:16.91 set by Ethan Spieker in 2017; it obliterated it by 7.07 seconds, the largest record margin of the morning by some distance. He won the race by 7.56 seconds from team-mate Reba Moleko, whose 2:17.40 was itself within half a second of the old record. A 14-year-old swimming 2:09 over 200m backstroke in a morning long-course session is a performance that will be noted well beyond Zone IV.

Thomas answers back

Tyla Thomas arrived in Gaborone as the fastest seed in the Girls 13-14 800m Freestyle and finished third. She was fourth in Wednesday's 100m Backstroke and sixth in the morning's 200m Breaststroke. Then, in the Girls 13-14 200m Backstroke, the 14-year-old from South Africa swam 2:26.64 to break Lise Coetzee's 2019 championship record of 2:26.88, holding off Ava Lorenzen by 0.53 in the tightest backstroke final of the session. Lorenzen's 2:27.17 was also faster than the old record, meaning the race produced the two fastest 13-14 200m Backstroke swims in the event's Zone IV history. Zimbabwe's Kaylea Rogers took bronze, her fourth medal of the championships.

Lorenzen, who had already won the 200m Breaststroke by 7.24 seconds earlier in the session, now has six medals across three sessions: three gold, one silver, two bronze and a relay title.

Ciampi, Badenhorst and Opperman join the list

Jayden Ciampi's 2:26.97 in the Boys 15-16 200m Breaststroke beat Liam Davis's 2016 mark of 2:27.49 by half a second and gave South Africa a third record. Eswatini's Luca Fraser, who had chased Ciampi home in the 50m on Wednesday, did so again for silver in 2:32.11, with Malawi's Tasunje Mkavea taking a second bronze of the meet and team-mate Caleb Misomali fourth.

Namibia's Oelof Badenhorst produced the morning's most poised record swim, a 2:47.05 in the Boys 11-12 200m Breaststroke that took almost a full second from the 2:48.03 set in 2020 by Oliver Durand, who was himself in the pool later in the session and won the Boys 17 & Over 200m Breaststroke by 9.24 seconds. Patrick Durand took silver behind Badenhorst.

Then, in the Boys 11-12 200m Backstroke, Conrad Opperman lowered Oliver Durand's second 2020 record, 2:32.05, to 2:29.89. Seeded second behind Patrick Durand, the 11-year-old improved three seconds and won by 3.16. It is his third individual gold of the championships, all won against swimmers a year older. Patrick Durand's 2:33.05 in silver was itself only a second outside the old record.

Namibia's biggest session yet

Namibia turned the morning into a fifteen-medal haul: six golds, four silvers, five bronzes, the largest single-session return by any nation so far. Molina Smalley, 28, won the Girls 17 & Over 200m Breaststroke in 2:46.66 from third seed, edging Mauritius's Alicia Kok Shun by 3.18 seconds. Roselinda Matyayi and Sandra Schnebel went one-two in the Girls 15-16 200m Backstroke, Jessica Humphrey won the Girls 17 & Over 200m Backstroke by 20.73 seconds, the widest margin of the session, and Arkell Wellmann, 23, took the Boys 17 & Over 200m Backstroke from Lukas Chan Chuen of Mauritius and Malawi's Luka Smit.

South Africa's Juan Nel added the Boys 15-16 200m Backstroke in 2:14.99, 0.86 outside the championship record, ahead of team-mate Kyle Snyders and Namibia's Victor Engelhard.

The race of the session

For all the records, the swim that had the pool on its feet was the Girls 15-16 200m Breaststroke. Zimbabwe's Neema Bhulabhai took the race on from the first stroke and led through 50, 100 and 150 metres, still in front deep into the final length with what looked like a winning margin. Jemmah Roman of South Africa, beaten by one hundredth of a second in Wednesday's 50m Breaststroke and seeded second here, was half a lap adrift when the last turn came. She made up all of it. Roman ran Bhulabhai down over the closing 25 metres and got a fingertip to the wall first, 2:52.89 to 2:53.25, a margin of 0.36 seconds. Bhulabhai's silver was a personal improvement of 1.67 seconds and the bravest front-running of the morning; Roman's gold, 24 hours after losing by the smallest margin the sport records, was redemption by the narrowest of routes. Namibia's Vitoria De Sousa took bronze.

Beyond the two leaders

Zambia's Namwezi Mulligan reversed Wednesday's result against team-mate Isabella Hesse to win the Girls 11-12 200m Breaststroke, with Namibia's Mika Fourie taking bronze after a 13-second improvement. Zimbabwe's J Wes Jared won the Boys 13-14 200m Breaststroke from Zachary Kruger, who took 10.67 seconds off his seed for silver, and Tatenda Mujati. Emma Liu-Chit-Chon of Seychelles won the Girls 11-12 200m Backstroke, with Namibia's Aaliyah Losper and Mauritius's Aaniya Prayag repeating their 100m podium.

Mozambique claimed its first individual medal since the opening morning through Kael Rodrigues, bronze in the Boys 11-12 200m Breaststroke. Eswatini's Hayley Hoy took silver in the Girls 17 & Over 200m Backstroke, Madagascar's Lauren Andrianirina swam an 8.6-second improvement for fifth in the Girls 17 & Over 200m Breaststroke, and Angola's Ana Carolina Palha, disqualified on Wednesday, returned to cut 27.57 seconds from her seed in the Girls 11-12 200m Backstroke, the largest improvement of the session by any swimmer.

The hosts

Botswana went without gold but converted 17 of 25 swims into improvements, the best conversion rate of any delegation with more than two swimmers. Khalil Sethi took silver and Mmusi Matthews bronze in the Boys 17 & Over 200m Breaststroke behind Oliver Durand, Yun-suh Chang added a second bronze of the meet in the Girls 17 & Over 200m Breaststroke, and Zoe Oagile-Motso (fourth, 14-second improvement) and Phoebe Oagile-Motso (sixth, 8.3-second improvement) both swam personal-best territory in the backstroke finals.

What the numbers say

Only 36 per cent of swimmers improved on their seed time, down from 50 per cent on Wednesday evening, with breaststroke (26 of 87) proving far harder to convert than backstroke (38 of 93). Yet five records fell. The lesson is that the field is polarising: the top-tier swimmers are racing at or beyond their best, while the mid-field is finding the 200m events in a morning session a demanding proposition. Top seeds won 12 of 16 finals; the upsets came from Roman, Smalley, Opperman and Nel.

Angola and Madagascar were the only nations not to medal in the session. Every other delegation, including single-figure squads from Malawi, Eswatini and Mauritius, reached the podium.

Medal Table – Day 2, Session 3 (Individual Events)

Cumulative Medal Table – After Session 3 (Individual Events)

Ranked by gold, then silver, then bronze. Relay medals are tracked separately: after Day 1, South Africa 2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze; Namibia 2 gold; Zimbabwe 2 silver; Botswana 1 silver, 1 bronze; Seychelles 1 bronze; Zambia 1 bronze. No relays were contested in this session.

Championship Records – Session 3

Records as flagged on the official results sheet, subject to ratification.

Looking ahead

South Africa lead on gold, Namibia lead on total medals, and the two are pulling clear. But with Seychelles, Zimbabwe and the hosts all in double figures or close to it, and five records already gone before the halfway point, the afternoon session at the University of Botswana pool has a great deal to live up to.