National swimmers break four records in California
National swimmers break four records in California
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian swimmers currently training in
America for October's Asian Games in Hiroshima shattered four
more national records.
The new records were established during the Junior Olympic
Swimming championships in Clovis, California which started on
Wednesday.
The country's new pool queen, Elsa Manora Nasution, splashed
her way to her fourth record-breaking time when she clocked two
minutes and 62 seconds in her favorite 200-meter backstroke. She
impressively cut 2.19secs off the old mark she set at the end of
July.
Olga Halim followed in Elsa's footsteps when she timed 2:18.56
to beat teammate Susanti Wangsawiguna's one-year 200m butterfly
record by 1.69secs. Olga, a West Sumatra native, also narrowly
beat the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games record of 2:18.74.
Another women's swimmer Rita Mariani lived up to her billing
as a 200m breaststroke specialist with a new national record of
2:37.88, surpassing her previous best of 2:38.04 which earned her
the SEA Games bronze medal last year.
Felix C. Susanto was the only male swimmer to break a record.
The Central Java native narrowly beat Lukman Niode's nine-year-
old national record of 2:09.06 by 0.18sec, but was more than five
second behind the SEA Games record held by the Philippines'
Raymond Papa.
The Indonesian Swimming Federation sent three male swimmers,
Vidi Lukman Korompis and the Sutanto brothers Felix and Albert
plus five female swimmers Elsa, Rita, Olga, Meitri Widya
Pangestika and Cynthia Putrianda to the overseas training stint
in June.
They joined national men swimmers Wirmandi Sugriat, Wisnu
Wardhana and Richard Sam Bera who are in the U.S. attending
school. The national team was scheduled to stay in California for
one and a half months.
The national swimming team, under tutelage of coach Raja
Nasution, will return home after the championships wind up on
Saturday.
On Monday, the national sports governing body, KONI, will
announce the athletes who qualify for the continent's sporting
festival. The sports body hinted earlier it would like to have
four men and four women swimmers on the national team for the
Games. (amd)