BONGANI MALUNGA
Naomi Ruele has continued her impressive college swimming exploits after bagging two gold medals at the Conference USA (C-USA) Championships last week. The young swimmer is fast becoming one of the best college swimmers in the United States of America.
The Florida International University student helped her college register a school record, the FIU swimming and diving team recorded 922.5 points to win the C-USA Championship for a third straight year. Ruele bagged her first medal in the individual 100m backstroke as she also set a Personal Best (PB) of 52.78 seconds.
Her PB also qualifies as a B rating for the highly rated NCAA Championships in March, it is the biggest college level competition in the country and can also be televised on giant sports channels such as ESPN,she participated in the competition last year in her debut season and fell short but it appears she has learned a lot compared to when she first arrived.
Her second gold medal came courtesy of a 400m medley relay, where she and three of her teammates scooped first position and set a new FIU record in the process. Ruele appears at home in the C-USA Championships, last year she exceeded expectations in the competition and was named as the Swimmer of the Tournament.
A fortnight ago this publication reported that the young swimmer was featured amongst the top 5 college swimmers at college level in a top US swimming magazine and she has lived up to that billing by earning more accolades. She still holds the national college 50m backstoke record in the US (22.28s), a feat she achieved during the Louisville Invitational Meet in November last year.