Harry Stacey dominates Africa Aquatics Championship with six gold medals

HARRY Stacey surprised himself by claiming six gold, one silver and one bronze medals to be named the best senior male swimmer at the end of the Africa Aquatics Zone 2 Swimming championships last Wednesday in Accra.

The 24-year-old Ghanaian, who also featured in two gold and one bronze-winning relays, also got the award for best men's performance for his outstanding 100m freestyle time of 59.50 seconds, which did not only start his gold medal haul during the three-day event, but also earned him 783 FINA points.

"I've been doing a lot of hard aerobic training for the past two months or so and that put me in a good stead for this competition. It was three days of competition, we are all tired, so when you have that aerobic fitness, you can push through and do well in all events," he told the  Graphic Sports.

"I was a little bit surprised, I didn't expect to go this far as I did this early in the season, but it's a good overall performance," the University of Colorado student said.

Aside from his own recognition, Stacey was also impressed by the performance of Team Ghana in its entirety, which saw the hosts grab 28 medals in the seniors, another 28 in the juniors and 15 more from the maiden masters tournament.

"The team did well 100 per cent. We got some really fast juniors who came through, the seniors did their jobs as well. I am really proud of the whole team," Stacey acknowledged.

Despite not making the medals podium during the Accra 2023 Africa Games in March this year, Stacey impressed and his consistent performances earned him a wild card to represent Ghana at the Paris 2024 Olympics in July where he only placed seventh in the 100m freestyle heats and was thereby eliminated.

But the experience gained has been immense and the only thing on Stacey's agenda at the moment is to keep improving his time in readiness for the huge tasks ahead, including the 2026 Commonwealth Games and Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

"I just need to keep pushing and hopefully compete at the world championship at the end of the year in Budapest, Hungary, and the world championship in Singapore next year," he pledged.

"Expect improvement. I want to keep working. Keep trying to get better. So let's keep pushing. Thanks to everyone for the love and support, and if you want to try out swimming, be my guest. It's a very funny thing to do," Harry Stacey signed out.