Six sessions level, one session to settle it: South Africa win 13 of 32 finals on Day 4, Namibia sweep the senior sprints and both relay records, Botswana post their biggest medal haul of the week and Lesotho's four swimmers all finish
GABORONE, Botswana – 5 September 2026 – For six sessions the XXII Africa Aquatics Zone IV Swimming Championships had refused to choose between South Africa and Namibia. On Saturday, across 32 individual finals and six relays in the longest session of the week, it finally did. South Africa won 13 individual golds to Namibia's 10 and finished the championships with 41 titles to 38, and 89 individual medals to 86. Gio Cocci won four more finals to close his week with ten golds from ten starts. Namibia took both senior 50m and 100m Freestyle titles through Luke Beukes and Jessica Humphrey and set two more relay records. And behind the two giants, Zimbabwe (14 golds), Seychelles (8), Botswana and Mauritius (6 each) confirmed the depth of a meet in which nine of thirteen nations won at least one title.
Cocci: ten for ten
Gio Cocci's final morning was a complete programme in miniature. He won the Boys 13-14 50m Freestyle in 25.36 from Zimbabwe's J Wes Jared and Jude Moss, the 100m Freestyle in 55.72 from Reba Moleko and Botswana's Mowana Bakwena, the 200m Butterfly in 2:21.14 by 8.67 seconds from Moleko and Mozambique's Goncalo Basto, and the 200m Individual Medley in 2:15.05, almost ten seconds clear of Moleko, with Jared third and Madagascar's Glorio Koty fourth. The butterfly and medley swims were both flagged as championship records, taking his tally to six on the official sheets. He then anchored the winning Boys 14 & Under 4x50m Freestyle Relay and led off the Mixed 14 & Under Medley Relay to gold. Ten individual finals, ten wins, six individual records and two relay golds: no swimmer in Gaborone came close.
Moleko, who spent the week in Cocci's slipstream, finished the session with three silvers and a relay gold. Juan Nel completed his own programme with the Boys 15-16 200m Butterfly, by 23.11 seconds from Seychelles' Anthony Morgan and Ramano Sefehle, and the 200m IM from Caleb Eaton and Namibia's Rodney Feris, both flagged as records. Kyle Snyders, 15, won both Boys 15-16 freestyle sprints, the 50m by 0.19 from Feris and the 100m by 0.65, with Sefehle and Eaton taking the bronzes.
Namibia's senior sweep
If South Africa owned the 13-16 age groups, Namibia owned the seniors. Luke Beukes won the Boys 17 & Over 50m Freestyle in 22.73 and the 100m in 51.30, the latter by 0.09 from Botswana's Rayhan Khonat with Oliver Durand third, and both times were flagged as championship marks. Jessica Humphrey won the Girls 17 & Over 100m Freestyle by two hundredths of a second from Botswana's Maxine Egner, 1:00.45 to 1:00.47, and the 200m IM from Molina Smalley and South Africa's Caitlyn Dube, both flagged as records; she finished the week with eight individual golds and a bronze. Oliver Durand won the Boys 17 & Over 200m Butterfly and 200m IM, the latter by 1.22 from Khonat, to reach eight golds of his own, and Ariana Naukosho won the Girls 17 & Over 200m Butterfly as the only entrant.
Patrick Durand, 12, won the Boys 11-12 200m Butterfly by 18.62 seconds from Seychelles' Raphael Course and Mozambique's Leon Barros, and the 200m IM by 0.95 from team-mate Oelof Badenhorst, with Conrad Opperman third. Vitoria De Sousa and Ainoa Naukosho went one-two in the Girls 15-16 200m IM ahead of Jemmah Roman.
Then the relays. Namibia's Mixed 15 & Over Medley Relay of Humphrey, Durand, Beukes and De Sousa swam 4:09.65, flagged as a record, ahead of Botswana and Mauritius, after South Africa were disqualified. The Boys 15 & Over 4x50m Freestyle quartet of Durand, Arkell Wellmann, Feris and Beukes closed the championships with 1:36.79, another record, from Botswana and South Africa.
The finishes that decided medals
Four finals were decided by less than a tenth of a second. Saskya Kistnasami of South Africa won the Girls 15-16 100m Freestyle by 0.04 from Zimbabwe's Alexis Johnsen, with Maya Mgcina third. Humphrey's 0.02 over Egner in the 17 & Over 100m Freestyle was matched by Zimbabwe's Tanatswa Chandiwana in the 50m, 27.43 to Egner's 27.49, a swim flagged as a championship record, with Humphrey third. Beukes' 0.09 over Khonat completed the set. Egner, 22, finished the session with two silvers by a combined eight hundredths; Khonat finished with three, in the 100m and 200m IM as well as the 50m Freestyle, and a relay silver and bronze.
Rogers and Thomas, the final chapters
Tyla Thomas and Kaylea Rogers met twice more. In the Girls 13-14 50m Freestyle, Thomas won her second individual gold of the week in 28.06 from Amaranthine Dunkley and Rogers. In the 100m Freestyle, Rogers won her fourth, 1:02.50 from Dunkley and Mozambique's Angela Chicumbe, with Thomas fourth. Across five freestyle finals the pair split the honours four to one in Rogers' favour; Thomas leaves with two golds, four silvers, a bronze and a championship record, Rogers with three golds, two silvers and three bronzes. Ava Lorenzen won the Girls 13-14 200m Butterfly, flagged as a record, and the 200m IM, both from Thomas, to finish with six golds and ten individual medals.
Zimbabwe's five, and a 25-second record
Wade Cameron won the Boys 11-12 50m Freestyle by 0.68 from Conrad Opperman, then lost the 100m to him by 0.21; the two 11 and 12-year-olds met in nine finals this week and Cameron won four. Johnsen's 50m Freestyle gold, from Kistnasami and Botswana's Melodi Saleshando, and Chandiwana's 50m completed a Zimbabwean sprint set. Ruvarashe Mukungunugwa, 12, won the Girls 11-12 200m Butterfly in 3:16.48, 25 seconds inside her entry time, by 0.46 from Mozambique's Emily Iliev, with Malawi's Davina Chongwe taking her fourth bronze of the week. Zimbabwe finished the meet with 14 individual golds, seven relay silvers and 44 individual medals, clear in third.
The hosts' biggest day
Botswana ended the championships with 17 medals in a single session. Lame Thomba, 12, won the Girls 11-12 50m Freestyle from Zambia's Zawadi Njoroge and Mauritius's Blaizya Zuel, and the 100m Freestyle by 3.08 seconds from Zuel and Seychelles' Emma Liu-Chit-Chon, then took silver behind Mauritius's Aaniya Prayag in the 200m IM with team-mate Zoe Oagile-Motso, 12, taking bronze after a ten-second improvement. Thomba leaves Gaborone with four golds and seven medals, the host nation's swimmer of the week. Khonat's three silvers, Egner's two, Saleshando's bronze and Bakwena's bronze completed the individual haul, and the relay squads added two silvers and four bronzes. Botswana finished the meet with 41 individual medals, second only to the two leaders on total count, and 11 relay medals.
Every nation on the last day
Mozambique had its best session, with Iliev's silver and bronzes for Kael Rodrigues (50m Freestyle), Chicumbe, Basto and Barros. Mauritius's Prayag won the Girls 11-12 200m IM from second seed, Zuel took silver and bronze, and the Mixed 15 & Over Medley Relay of Lukas Chan Chuen, Alicia Kok Shun, Ruslan Nakhuda and Lea Thomas won Mauritius's first relay medal of the meet. Zambia's Njoroge, 11, took silver in the 50m Freestyle and Kira Haabazoka bronze in the 200m Butterfly. Angola's Uami Alberto Sousa was fourth in both 11-12 freestyle sprints, and Marco Alessandro Furtado took bronze in the Boys 17 & Over 200m Butterfly. Malawi's Luka Smit was fourth in the Boys 17 & Over 50m Freestyle. Eswatini's Damien De Sousa improved 1.10 seconds for seventh in the 17 & Over 100m Freestyle, and Sekukahle Mthethwa took 17 seconds off his seed in the 200m IM. Madagascar's Mael Ranoharison improved 7.7 seconds in the same event.
Lesotho's four swimmers, Kealeboha Khama, Lineo Matete, Teboho Sekoloto and Khobotle Bokae, all completed their races. Sekoloto's 35.13 in the Boys 17 & Over 50m Freestyle was 5.70 seconds faster than his first swim of the championships on Thursday.
What the numbers say
Day 4 was the hardest day of the week to improve on: 101 of 423 swimmers (24 per cent) bettered their seed, down from 43 per cent the previous evening, with the 200m IM (19 of 107) and 100m Freestyle (25 of 130) especially demanding. Swimmers aged 14 and under improved on 78 of 231 swims; those 15 and over on 23 of 192. Botswana converted 17 of 50 swims, Zambia 12 of 41 and Zimbabwe 11 of 48; the two leading nations, racing on tired legs, improved on six swims each. Top seeds won 26 of 32 finals.
Across the whole championships, 1,577 individual swims were recorded by athletes from 13 nations. Thirty individual and four relay swims were flagged as championship records, 15 of them individual and two relay on the final day.
Medal Table – Day 4, Session 7 (Individual Events)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Africa | 13 | 8 | 6 | 27 |
| 2 | Namibia | 10 | 6 | 7 | 23 |
| 3 | Zimbabwe | 5 | 5 | 4 | 14 |
| 4 | Botswana | 2 | 6 | 3 | 11 |
| 5 | Seychelles | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7 |
| 6 | Mauritius | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 7 | Mozambique | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| 8 | Zambia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 9 | Angola | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 9 | Malawi | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| – | Eswatini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| – | Madagascar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| – | Lesotho | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Final Medal Table – Individual Events (Sessions 1–7)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Africa | 41 | 29 | 19 | 89 |
| 2 | Namibia | 38 | 22 | 26 | 86 |
| 3 | Zimbabwe | 14 | 16 | 14 | 44 |
| 4 | Seychelles | 8 | 10 | 11 | 29 |
| 5 | Botswana | 6 | 17 | 18 | 41 |
| 5 | Mauritius | 6 | 6 | 4 | 16 |
| 7 | Zambia | 4 | 8 | 3 | 15 |
| 8 | Angola | 2 | 1 | 4 | 7 |
| 9 | Eswatini | 1 | 5 | 5 | 11 |
| 10 | Mozambique | 0 | 3 | 9 | 12 |
| 11 | Madagascar | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 12 | Malawi | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 |
| – | Lesotho | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ranked by gold, then silver, then bronze. Botswana and Mauritius are level on six golds; Botswana lead on silver.
Final Relay Medal Table
| Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Africa | 8 | 2 | 3 | 13 |
| Namibia | 6 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| Zimbabwe | 0 | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Botswana | 0 | 4 | 7 | 11 |
| Mauritius | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Seychelles | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Zambia | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Relay medals are tracked separately from the individual table.
Leading Individual Medallists – Whole Championships
| Swimmer | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gio Cocci | South Africa | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Jessica Humphrey | Namibia | 8 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Oliver Durand | Namibia | 8 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Conrad Opperman | Seychelles | 6 | 3 | 2 | 11 |
| Ava Lorenzen | South Africa | 6 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| Juan Nel | South Africa | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| Jemmah Roman | South Africa | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Lame Thomba | Botswana | 4 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
| Vitoria De Sousa | Namibia | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Wade Cameron | Zimbabwe | 3 | 4 | 2 | 9 |
| Patrick Durand | Namibia | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| Oelof Badenhorst | Namibia | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
| Kaylea Rogers | Zimbabwe | 3 | 2 | 3 | 8 |
Championship Records – Session 7
| Event | Swimmer / Team | Nation | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Girls 17 & Over 50m Freestyle | Tanatswa Chandiwana | Zimbabwe | 27.43 |
| Boys 17 & Over 50m Freestyle | Luke Beukes | Namibia | 22.73 |
| Girls 11-12 200m Butterfly | Ruvarashe Mukungunugwa | Zimbabwe | 3:16.48 |
| Boys 11-12 200m Butterfly | Patrick Durand | Namibia | 2:36.94 |
| Girls 13-14 200m Butterfly | Ava Lorenzen | South Africa | 2:39.03 |
| Boys 13-14 200m Butterfly | Gio Cocci | South Africa | 2:21.14 |
| Boys 15-16 200m Butterfly | Juan Nel | South Africa | 2:08.63 |
| Girls 17 & Over 200m Butterfly | Ariana Naukosho | Namibia | 3:01.47 |
| Boys 17 & Over 200m Butterfly | Oliver Durand | Namibia | 2:14.73 |
| Girls 17 & Over 100m Freestyle | Jessica Humphrey | Namibia | 1:00.45 |
| Boys 17 & Over 100m Freestyle | Luke Beukes | Namibia | 51.30 |
| Boys 13-14 200m IM | Gio Cocci | South Africa | 2:15.05 |
| Boys 15-16 200m IM | Juan Nel | South Africa | 2:12.43 |
| Girls 17 & Over 200m IM | Jessica Humphrey | Namibia | 2:31.88 |
| Boys 17 & Over 200m IM | Oliver Durand | Namibia | 2:13.62 |
| Mixed 15 & Over 4x100m Medley Relay | Namibia | Namibia | 4:09.65 |
| Boys 15 & Over 4x50m Freestyle Relay | Namibia | Namibia | 1:36.79 |
Flagged as championship records on the official results sheet, subject to ratification. The sheet for this session lists each new mark in place of the previous record, so prior marks are not shown; several of the 17 & Over and 200m Butterfly entries may be inaugural standards in events without an existing record.
The championships in summary
Thirteen nations, 1,577 individual swims, 34 flagged championship records, and a gold-medal race that stayed level through six of seven sessions. South Africa's depth in the 13-16 age groups, led by a 14-year-old who did not lose a race, decided the title. Namibia's senior programme, Humphrey, Durand and Beukes above all, was the most complete in the pool and its relay squads the fastest. Zimbabwe's young sprinters and Seychelles' Conrad Opperman, who at 11 took eleven medals from swimmers a year older, were the stories of the next generation. Botswana, hosting, won six golds and 41 individual medals with a team built around Lame Thomba, Melodi Saleshando, Rayhan Khonat and Maxine Egner. Angola, Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zambia all reached the podium, and Lesotho, in its first appearance of the week, put four swimmers in the water and brought four of them home.
The XXII Africa Aquatics Zone IV Swimming Championships close with the region's record book substantially rewritten, and with a clear view of where the next generation of African swimming is coming from.
