By Eddie AKALONU
Members of the Nigeria Swimming Federation, NSF Technical Committee have been brainstorming to determine from the results of the first and second Swimming Classics held earlier in the year who is the best swimmer and winner of the 2010 National Classics.

This follows the inability of the federation to hold the third and last leg of the Classics earlier scheduled to take place in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State. The city is host of the twice postponed 17th National Sports Festival and the state government is still grappling with putting up facilities for the festival hence the failure of the third Classics to hold.

Meanwhile, from the first Classics in Ibadan and the second in Lagos, Classics, Sampson Opuakpo leads in the Men’s category with 33 points, Yellow Yeiyah follows with 30 points and Memune Tebesia is third with 12points.

For the women, Deborah Tona leads with 21 points, second is Gbatomi Williams with 17 points and Ruth Izenegu is third with 14 points.

Asked for his comments, president of the federation, Babatunde Fatayi- Williams said  “we have left the issue for the technical committee to determine. I will not want to say anything to pre-empt the committee.

You know Rivers State were scheduled to host the Classics but you know they are also hosts of the National Sports Festival which has suffered postponements. So, there are problems and because the third Classics could not hold, we have left it to the technical committee to determine who will be crowned the best.”

Meanwhile two swimmers, a male and female each will fly the country’s flag at the World Swimming Championships which got underway in Dubai on Wednesday and will end tomorrow.

The swimmers are Yellow Yeiyah for 50m and 100m freestyle and Rachael Tonjor for the 50m and 100m breast-stroke events.