Students must learn how to swim at a young age to prevent them from drowning - Bower

As we are surrounded by rivers and seas students need to learn how to swim at a young age to prevent them from drowning.

These were the words of Fiji School’s Swimming President Patrick Bower during the 2024 National Schools Swimming Championship held at the Aquatic Centre in Suva.

Bower says this is one of the Annual events for the schools in the Viti Levu which builds swimmers to represent the country on an international level in the future.

He says competitions as such must be included in the school calendar as well because some of the challenges faced are timing and finance.

The President says they also hope to include schools from the Northern division as well.

Bower further says this year there is more interest from the students and support from the teachers and parents.

More than 1,500 students from 30 different schools are part of the Swimming Championship including schools like Swami Vivekananda College, Yat Sen Secondary, Suva Grammar School, Jasper Williams College and Tilak High School, Mahatma Gandhi Memorial School and International School Suva.

Meanwhile, as per yesterday's medal tally St Joseph Secondary School has 22 gold medals followed by Drasa Avenue School with 14 gold, Holy Trinity Anglican School with 6 gold, Natabua High School with 9 golds and International School Suva with 4 medals.

Swami Vivekananda College is the overall defending champion with 71 gold. Karishma