Hayley Hoy delivers a historic Eswatini gold, Jemmah Roman sets a record by four hundredths, Kaylea Rogers beats Tyla Thomas a third time and Botswana's Lame Thomba wins again on Day 3 morning in Gaborone
GABORONE, Botswana – 4 September 2026 – Sixteen more finals, five more golds each, and still nothing to separate them. The Day 3 morning session of the XXII Africa Aquatics Zone IV Swimming Championships, covering the 400m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly, ended with South Africa and Namibia locked together on 23 individual gold medals apiece, exactly as they had begun it on 18. Namibia lead on total medals, 55 to 50, and produced the largest single-session return of the meet with 14. But the morning belonged as much to the nations further down the table: Eswatini's first gold, a second for Angola's Wezza Lukenya Morais, and another home title for 12-year-old Lame Thomba.
Eswatini's breakthrough
Hayley Hoy had been the most consistent medallist of the smaller delegations, with three bronzes and a silver across the first two days. In the Girls 17 & Over 400m Freestyle she went one better. The 18-year-old controlled the race from the front and touched in 5:00.83, 16 seconds clear of Zambia's Winnie Mbewe, to give Eswatini its first gold medal of these championships. Botswana's Sally-Louise Ingwe took bronze with a four-second improvement. Hoy returned within the hour for the Girls 17 & Over 100m Butterfly and took silver behind Namibia's Jessica Humphrey, ahead of Molina Smalley. Two medals in one morning, and a delegation of fifteen that has now reached the podium nine times.
Cocci's fourth record, and a South African morning of near-misses
Gio Cocci won the Boys 13-14 400m Freestyle by 5.33 seconds from Reba Moleko and then, in the Boys 13-14 100m Butterfly, swam 58.65 to break Cleyton Munguambe's championship record of 1:00.76 by more than two seconds. Moleko's 1:00.54 in second was also inside the old mark. Cocci has now set four individual championship records in five sessions and won five individual titles, and remains unbeaten in Gaborone. Mozambique's Goncalo Basto took a second bronze of the meet in the butterfly.
Jemmah Roman added South Africa's second record of the session in the Girls 15-16 100m Butterfly, her 1:06.58 beating Elodie Wong's mark of 1:06.62 by four hundredths of a second, with Maya Mgcina second and Namibia's Ainoa Naukosho third. Juan Nel won both the Boys 15-16 400m Freestyle, from Caleb Eaton and Namibia's Victor Engelhard, and the 100m Butterfly, from Rodney Feris and Ramano Sefehle, finishing 0.59 outside Guy Wessels' championship record in the latter. Malawi's Tasunje Mkavea was fourth in that final with an improvement of 0.32.
For all that, South Africa's swimmers had a demanding morning: only one of the delegation's 14 swims bettered its seed time. That they still converted 14 swims into 12 medals says a great deal about the gap between their entry times and the field.
Rogers and Thomas, chapter three
Kaylea Rogers of Zimbabwe and Tyla Thomas of South Africa have now met in three freestyle finals. Thomas was the faster seed each time; Rogers has won all three. In the Girls 13-14 400m Freestyle, Thomas arrived with a seed of 4:30.10, more than 13 seconds quicker than Rogers, and the pair raced to the wall together, Rogers touching in 4:50.43 and Thomas in 4:50.68, a margin of 0.25 after Thursday's 0.04. Namibia's Roze Van Wyk took bronze. Rogers, 13, now has two golds and seven medals overall; Thomas holds a championship record and has been beaten by the same swimmer three times.
Namibia's fourteen
Oliver Durand won both his events, the Boys 17 & Over 400m Freestyle by 1.40 seconds from Botswana's Rayhan Khonat, with Zimbabwe's Connor Grist third, and the 100m Butterfly in 54.95 from team-mate Luke Beukes and Botswana's Gaamangwe Keitsile. Vitoria De Sousa and Sandra Schnebel went one-two in the Girls 15-16 400m Freestyle, with Angola's Rhanya Espirito Santo taking bronze ahead of Roman. Patrick Durand won the Boys 11-12 100m Butterfly by 0.79 from Oelof Badenhorst, a Namibian one-two, and added bronze in the 400m Freestyle behind Conrad Opperman and Zimbabwe's Wade Cameron. Humphrey's 100m Butterfly gold, in 1:03.78, was her fifth individual title of the meet.
Morais again, and a Zambian 11-year-old
Wezza Lukenya Morais followed Thursday's 50m Butterfly gold with the 100m, swimming 1:07.71 to beat Ava Lorenzen by 1.05 seconds, with Botswana's Jade Chilisa third after a 1.84-second improvement. Angola now has two golds, both from the same 13-year-old, and its delegation of 19 in this session improved on eight swims, including Uami Alberto Sousa (fifth in the 400m Freestyle, seventh in the 100m Butterfly, improvements of 18.93 and 5.52 seconds) and Ana Carolina Palha, who took 35 seconds off her seed in the 400m Freestyle.
Tamika Njovu, 11, won the Girls 11-12 100m Butterfly for Zambia in 1:19.44 from second seed, beating Mozambique's Emily Iliev and Lame Thomba. Team-mate Olivia Chileshe, aged 10, was fourth. Malawi's Davina Chongwe, the Day 1 bronze medallist, took bronze again in the Girls 11-12 400m Freestyle with a 27.78-second improvement, Malawi's fifth medal of the championships.
The hosts
Lame Thomba won the Girls 11-12 400m Freestyle by 2.41 seconds from Mauritius's Aaniya Prayag, her second gold of the meet, before adding bronze in the 100m Butterfly. Botswana finished the morning with six medals: Thomba's gold and bronze, Khonat's silver, and bronzes for Ingwe, Chilisa and Keitsile. Zoe Oagile-Motso, 12, was fourth in the 400m Freestyle and sixth in the 100m Butterfly with improvements of 18.07 and 11.30 seconds, and Botswana's 24 swimmers converted 13 into improvements, the best rate of any large delegation.
Conrad Opperman won the Boys 11-12 400m Freestyle for Seychelles by 6.28 seconds, his fifth individual gold, and Cornelius Opperman took bronze in the Boys 13-14 400m Freestyle with a near-10-second improvement. Mauritius's Ethan Apollon and Adam Rajabalee were fourth and fifth in the same race. Madagascar's single entrant, Tahiana Razafimandimby, improved by a second for eleventh.
What the numbers say
Morning distance swimming remains the toughest assignment of the programme: 70 of 178 swimmers (39 per cent) bettered their seed, with 400m Freestyle (30 of 82) harder than 100m Butterfly (40 of 96). The age split was stark. Swimmers aged 14 and under improved on 55 of 107 swims; those 15 and over managed 15 of 71. Top seeds won 11 of 16 finals; the five upsets came from Opperman, Rogers, Nel (400m Freestyle), Njovu and Morais. Eight swimmers won two medals in the session.
Eleven of the twelve nations in the pool won a medal; Madagascar, with one swimmer entered, was the exception. Lesotho did not compete in this session.
Medal Table – Day 3, Session 5 (Individual Events)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Africa | 5 | 6 | 1 | 12 |
| 2 | Namibia | 5 | 4 | 5 | 14 |
| 3 | Botswana | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 4 | Zimbabwe | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 5 | Eswatini | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | Zambia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 7 | Angola | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 7 | Seychelles | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 9 | Mozambique | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 10 | Mauritius | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 11 | Malawi | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| – | Madagascar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Cumulative Medal Table – After Session 5 (Individual Events)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Africa | 23 | 19 | 8 | 50 |
| 2 | Namibia | 23 | 14 | 18 | 55 |
| 3 | Seychelles | 7 | 4 | 6 | 17 |
| 4 | Zimbabwe | 6 | 10 | 8 | 24 |
| 5 | Botswana | 4 | 8 | 11 | 23 |
| 6 | Zambia | 3 | 6 | 1 | 10 |
| 7 | Mauritius | 3 | 5 | 3 | 11 |
| 8 | Angola | 2 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| 9 | Eswatini | 1 | 4 | 4 | 9 |
| 10 | Mozambique | 0 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 11 | Madagascar | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 12 | Malawi | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| – | Lesotho | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ranked by gold, then silver, then bronze. Relay medals are tracked separately; no relays were contested in this session. Cumulative relay standings after Day 2: South Africa 4 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze; Namibia 4 gold; Zimbabwe 4 silver, 1 bronze; Botswana 2 silver, 3 bronze; Seychelles 1 bronze; Zambia 1 bronze.
Championship Records – Session 5
| Event | Swimmer | Nation | New Record | Previous Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys 13-14 100m Butterfly | Gio Cocci | South Africa | 58.65 | 1:00.76 (C. Munguambe, MOZ) |
| Girls 15-16 100m Butterfly | Jemmah Roman | South Africa | 1:06.58 | 1:06.62 (E. Wong) |
Reba Moleko (RSA, 1:00.54) also swam inside the previous Boys 13-14 100m Butterfly record in second place. Records as flagged on the official results sheet, subject to ratification.
Looking ahead
Eleven individual championship records have fallen, two nations cannot be separated on gold after five sessions, and nine of thirteen nations have now won at least one title. The Day 3 evening session at the University of Botswana pool brings the sprint freestyle and the next set of relays, and with it the first real chance for one of the leaders to pull clear.
