Aimee Canny targets records at Commonwealth Games

Aimee Canny and Pieter Coetze were the stars of the show at the recent Bombela Concession Company SA Swimming Championships in Gqeberha after securing four and five qualifying spots respectively. 

Canny has already broken her personal best at the SA Nationals, in the women’s 200m freestyle as well as the 100m breaststroke.

Speaking exclusively to SABC Sport, Canny says although she has been overwhelmed at big events in the past, her goal at this year's Commonwealth Games would be to swim a personal best and with swimming a PB comes a podium finish.

“I think I would love to do a personal best. At a big meet like that, I think a lot of time it gets very overwhelming,” said Canny

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“In the past I’ve been quite overwhelmed and I just think being able to do well and have a PB in any of my races would be great. I think that’s probably going to be my biggest goal - going into that just knowing how to race fast in that type of environment.”

The economics student says that she does not know at this stage which event she will swim at the Commonwealth Games, and she will see which events she ranks the highest in, but she has been really focusing on her backstroke this year and it’s the event Canny believes has made the difference this year.

“I’ve been doing a lot of Individual Medley this year. I was really focusing on my backstroke, and I think the backstroke is what has made the difference for me this year.”

“I usually kind of tend to get behind in the backstroke and that wasn’t the case this year. So I really worked hard on that because I know I’m a pretty strong breastroker and freestyler. So I guess I could close the Individual Medley well.”