File photo of Anderson Lim Chee
Wei in action. Lim broke a personal
record in the 200m butterfly
yesterday, with his time now
standing at 2.17.99. Picture:
BT file

Brunei's national swimmers won't be returning with any medals but it will still be mission accomplished at the 4th Commonwealth Youth Games.

Anderson Lim Chee Wei and Florence Sea Wern Lyn closed their campaign at the Isle of Man, United Kingdom, yesterday by breaking personal bests in both events they competed in. Having broken records in seven of the eight events they swam in, the duo still have plenty to cheer about despite not making a trip to the podium.

According to national swim coach Eric Landa, Lim broke his personal record in the 200m butterfly yesterday, with his time now standing at 2.17.99. Sea broke her personal record in the 200m freestyle yesterday, with the new best time now at 2.33.93.

Sea could have made it a clean sweep for the swim team if not for her disqualification in the women's 800m freestyle on Friday. On course to beat her record, she stopped swimming with only 30 laps done - thinking she had completed the entire 32 laps.

The new records are to be expected and it was always the target after all since Landa said that swimming in the short course (25m) pools would result in faster times. In comparison with Olympic length 50m pools, which are the standard in the sport, the 25m pools offer swimmers more turns and the ability to take advantage of the kicks off the wall that come from it. Meanwhile in the final of the women's 400m hurdles, Rozmacynthia Simbilan finished last in the field of eight runners after clocking 82.28s. Australia's Tatum Shaw took gold after finishing with 60.49 while England's Hayley McLean finished with silver on 61.76s. Canada's Taylor Farquhar claimed bronze with 62.00s.

The Sultanate's sole representative in athletics, Rozmacynthia finished fifth in the semi-finals of the 400m event on Saturday the 16-year-old's time of 69.57s not enough to make the final. She clocked a time of 67.69s to finish third in her heats the previous day, agonisingly close to breaking her personal best.

Like the swimmers, her goal was also to break her personal bests which were understood to be 67.54s in the 400m and 74.02 in the 400m hurdles.

Lim beat his own 100m freestyle record with a time of 55.88s on Saturday and went on to record another best in the 100m butterfly by finishing with a time of 1.01.70, just half an hour after competing in the 100m freestyle. Not to be outdone, Sea finished her 400m freestyle in a new personal record of 5.26.56, an impressive 12 seconds faster than her previous record.

Lim set a new best in the 50m butterfly with a time of 28.28s on Friday, with Sea also managing a personal best in the women's 100m freestyle event with a time of 1:10.95.

Courtesy from Brunei Times