Kenya’s Anne Obure grabbed a silver medal in the 25m freestyle at the Singapore Masters swimming Championships held over the weekend in OCBC Aquatic Centre, Singapore.
Obure, who operates under Ogelea Africa, finished six seconds behind Australian Cindy Ong who beat her to the gold medal. Ong’s time was 12.64 while Bettina Schreiber from Britain finished third in 18.51 seconds. “At the beginning I was quite nervous but later grew in confidence after the third race. At the end, I was excited for not only winning the silver medal but also completing all the races,” said Obure.
The 34-year-old also finished fourth in the 50m breast stroke in a time of 52.7 seconds, fifth in 100m breast stroke (2:01:29), sixth in 50m freestyle (44.82 seconds) and fifth in 25m breast stroke (24.28 seconds). Obure made her debut in the same event last year—taking part in four events; 50m freestyle, 50m backstroke and 50m and 100m breast stroke. She won a silver medal in the 100m breast stroke just being out-touched by Madhura Patil.
Her main focus as of now is to keep fit in readiness for next year’s championships. “I have already began preparations for next year’s event an d hopefully through my hard work and determination, I will get a gold medal,” she emphasized.
Obure, who catered for her own travel and accommodation, still has to deal with the issue of lack of training facilities in the country. “My number one challenge is finding a swimming pool that’s open before 7am and after 5pm. We would have more Kenyan swimmers not only competing but winning international events if there were more training facilities around the country,” she noted.
The longtime swimmer has also set her eyes on the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. “I have always wanted to compete amongst the best in the world and I will definitely try my best to get there,” she said.