The young Namibian swimmers Jonay Briedenhann, Alex Ray and Dannielle van Zijl have proved at the World Championships in Montreal, Canada that they can successfully compete with the rest of the world, are worth their mettle and are a force to recon with in future!

Dannielle van Zijl (19) finished first in her heat in the 200m individual medley clocking in a new personal best time of 2:30.61 improving her time by 1.18 seconds. She also bettered her 100m breast time of 1:16.64 to a new personal best of 1:15.93 earning her a phenomenal 688 points on the Fina points calculator. Dannielle also won her 200m breast heat, leaving her opponents in her shadow and improving her previous best time by 2.42s to a new peak of 2:44.80. Her 50m breaststroke performance earned her 678 Fina points being just off her Namibian open record time she set earlier in the year.

The very young Jonay Briedenhann (15) managed with triumph to overcome her first day, first event jitters, caused by having to swim her warm-up with world record holder, Michael Phelps, in the pool. With great success she improved her entered time of 1.11.29 by 1.21s to a new best time of 1:10.08, equaling 637 Fina points. In the 50m backstroke, Jonay also set a new personal best time of 33.46s, bettering her previous time of 33.82. She finished her 100m freestyle 38 splits off her personal best. For the 50m butterfly she took her entered time of 32.21s to a new incredibly low of 31.31s. The Namibian 200m backstroke age group record of 2:34.50 took a battering when Jonay improved this by 1.86s to set a new age group record of 2:32.64! On the last day of competition she still managed to better her 50m freestyle time from 29.48s to 29.38s.

Both Jonay Briedenhann and Alex Ray are astounding the swimming world with their explosive and extraordinary fast starts. Both proved that their reaction time is of the best in the world, putting them in the same league as the world record holders. In the 100m freestyle event Alex had a reaction time of a mere 0.64s, being faster than Ryk Neethling of South Africa and Michael Phelps, USA and 0.01s faster than world record holder Roland Schoeman , Schoeman being renowned to be the first off the block. Jonay proved that her starts are lightning fast! In both the 50m and 100m backstroke events she had the fastest reaction time of all competitors in the heats, semi finals and finals. Her incredible time of 0.57 outshone the reaction time of gold medal winner Kirsty Coventry, Antje Buschschulte silver medalist from Germany and bronze medalist Natalie Coughlin USA.

After seven days of tough competition the swimmers will arrive back in Windhoek on Wednesday, exhausted but thrilled and excited with their performance.