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Bruneian swimmers face tough challenge in Shanghai
Monday, July 25, 2011


Anderson Lim Chee Wei failed to better his own national record at the 14th Fina World Swimming Championships in Shanghai yesterday. Picture:BT/Yee Chun Leong


The bar was set pretty high and the first jump was just not good enough.

It was not exactly the best of starts for Brunei at the 14th Fina World Swimming Championships in Shanghai.

Prior to departure for the tournament, national swim coach Eric Landa was not expecting any medals at the highly-competitive event but was hoping that his swimmers will be able to break their own national records at the July 16-31 competition.

Anderson Lim Chee Wei was the first and only one to take to the pool yesterday and he finished 47th among a total of 49 swimmers in the men's 400 metres freestyle heats clocking a time of 4:34.95.

Olympic champion Park Taw-hwan of South Korea eventually won the event clocking a time of 3:42.04.

He beat China's Sun Yang who finished in second followed by 2009 Champion Paul Biedermann of Germany.

Lim, who is a big fan of Michael Phelps, was close but wasn't able to better his time of 4:33.76 in the event at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Centre.

However, all is not lost as the 15-year-old will once again take to the pool today to compete in the 200m freestyle event.

Considering that all the best swimmers in the world have converged at the meet, it will be no easy feat but he will be looking to break his record in the event which is set at 2:08.18. Christian Nikles is the only other swimmer from the Sultanate competing in China and he will only see action on Wednesday in the 100m freestyle event. His other event, which is the 50m freestyle, will only be contested on Friday.

The 13-year-old will be looking to break his time in both the events. His time in the 50m is 26.01 seconds while the 100m is 57.59s whereby both were set at the Asean School Games (ASG) in Singapore early last month.

This is the first time that both swimmers have gone to the world championships and they are definitely under some amount of pressure. Apart from swimming, four other aquatic disciplines are being held; diving, synchornised swimming, water polo and open water swimming. The competition will also serve as qualifiers for the 2012 London Olympics.

It means that there will be no Bruneian female swimmers in London next year considering that none were sent to swim in China due to the lack of quality.

Courtesy from Brunei Times