The Uganda Swimming Federation (USF) held its elections last Saturday, returning Donald Rukare as president for another four-year term of office.
Rukare, who has been USF boss for 16 years, polled 23 votes to beat Dolphins Swimming Club founder Tefiro Serunjogi with a paltry five votes. In his post-victory comments, Rukare promised to continue improving the sport.
“We need to have our own office, and that is one thing I am going to push for from the National Council of Sports,” Rukare said.
He added that the development of swimmers remains a pertinent cause for him, and therefore he will continue with the USF strategy of exposing the swimmers to swimming competitions both at home and across borders.
But this has been Rukare’s rhetoric for as long as he has been USF boss. Not much improvement has been realized as Uganda never made a good impression at major swimming meets.
That is one reason Serunjogi had his sights on the presidency. Serunjogi said the current leadership has failed to lobby government for money and other sponsors, to facilitate swimmers heading for international events: “Instead, it is the parents that have to facilitate their children representing the country. That is unacceptable.”
Serunjogi believes that with such a situation, there can be no continuity in talent development because athletes just withdraw and do other things. In his manifesto, Serunjogi had promised to ensure that swimming spreads to other regions in the country beyond mainly Kampala through clubs and schools.
But considering that swimming is not a mainstream sport here, getting the funding as Serunjogi had promised is always going to prove difficult. He was probably seen to be self-seeking, a major reason he must have been given a bloody nose.
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