Western Suburbs Swimming pool in Katutura, Olympia Swimming Pool and the Oanob Dam will host the biggest-ever Confederation of African Amature Nations Zone 4 Jnr championships as of this Saturday. Over 400 participants from 14 African countries are expected to compete in the Open Water, long and short courses as well as the Waterpolo discipline at the three venues. CANA is actually the regional organiser for swimming in Southern Africa, but this time around they have invited participants from East Africa, namely Tanzania,Uganda, and Kenya, as well. The competition in the past only consisted of the long and short courses, but recently open water swimming and water polo have been added to the championships, with CANA also looking to add artistic swimming and diving in the future. The chairman of the Local Organising Committee, Riaan Lamprecht, says they have a daunting task as hosting an event of this magnitude is not easy. He is however hopeful that with the assistance of the secretariat they will pull off a good event. Lamprecht also believes in the abilities of his home country. ”Namibia has done fairly well in CANA over the years. There's quite a few of the Swimming records that's still behind the Namibian names , which we are very proud of. Last year in Malawi we got six Gold, four Silver and thirteen Bronze. That's the minimum level that we are looking at and increasing going forward, Unfortunately we have our big brothers from South Africa that normally brings a team with lots of ammunition, so we are hoping to upset them this time around” Lamprecht said. CANA's secretary general Shaun Adriaanse has been pleased with the arrangements from the local organising committee. “Hosting the swimming competition on it's own is one challenge but hosting all three disciplines is quite a big challenge. I think the LOC has done a fantastic job . Yes there's always challenges, but I think they have done a fantastic job. We think it’s going to be the best ever competition that's been hosted by one of our federations” Adriaanse said. Adriaanse calls on the public to support the federation by going to the various venues , as they might also be inspired to take up the sports in future. The event starts on Saturday at 09h00 at the Olympia Swimming Pool and will move over to Oanob on Sunday for the open water swimming. It will again return to Olympia and Western Suburbs from Monday to Wednesday.