Roy Kiruri is on a mission to raise Ksh 1m for the Beyond Zero campaign
Teenage student 16 Year Old Roy Kiruri Swims in a Guinness World Book of Records Open Water event in South Africa to support Beyond Zero.
Roy Kiruri is on a mission to raise Ksh 1m in support of the Beyond Zero campaign aimed at addressing child and maternal health in Kenya through the purchase of mobile clinics to under privileged areas.
Roy joined up with other swimmers from all over the world including Olympic Open Water Swimmers to swim at the world renowned Guinness Book of Records Largest Open Water Swimming Race, The Midmar Mile. This was the 42nd time the vent was taking place and swimmers both young and old had met at the Midmar Dam in Howick, KwaZulu Natal in South Africa to meet a personal challenge of swimming a distance of 1.6km non-stop in a dam 11m deep and with no luxury of seeing the bottom. Having done this before Roy was confident for an improved finish which he did in 23 min 42 sec, I minute better from his last swim in 2013. Even though he has participated in this event before, young Roy Kiruri still agrees it is not for the faint hearted and was prepared and ready to take the plunge into the murky water at the starting line. There were various swimming champions from all over the world including Keri-Anne Payne from Britain who is the current World Open Water Swimming Champion who defended her title with a time of 17:34. Chad Ho who is a South Africa Olympic gold medalist won the men’s race for the six time, lowering the men’s one record set in 2004 by Prezmek Stanzcyk of Poland, by nine seconds for a new best time of 17min 4 sec. when he . There were over 16,000 participants and over 3000 in his category, 13 & under and 31 and over category. Roy was placed in the top 5% finishing the 1.6km race in 23 min 42 secs.
He has so far raised Ksh 500,000 a commendable effort from thus young Kenyan in deed and his community service efforts have been acknowledged by the Beyond Zero Kenya team.
Roy’s love for swimming has developed and simmered over the years. As a young 10 year old he represented Nairobi-Kenya at the Telkom South Africa Level 1 in championships in March 2010 where he won a silver medal in 50m breaststroke one of the few medals won in the individual events by the Nairobi team. He also participated in the Telkom South Africa Level 2 championships in Cape Town in March 2011 where he recorded 4 personal best times as well as another Kenya swimming group that travelled to Durban, South Africa for the aQuelle Level 2 in Durban, RSA between 23rd and 26th March 2012. He ended up in 6 finals posting personal best times some of which are currently Kenya 13yr old top times.
Roy is a member of the Kenya Dolphins the National Swimming Team junior squad and has represented Kenya in several international meets already. He was part of the CANA Zone 3&4 squad in Botswana in January 2011, Maputo, Mozambique in April 2012 and Zambia 2013. He also represented Kenya in the International Children’s Games held in Scotland in August 2011.
The sky is the limit for this young achiever. For more details on how to support Roy please go to www.facebook.com/roybeyondzero and www.twiter.com/roybeyondzero.