The Brunei swimmers that will be competing at the upcoming 15th FINA World Championships in Spain. Picture: Courtesy of ric Landa
There is no time to waste for the national swimming team.
The quartet of Christian Nikles, Tiara Sharil Anwar, Muhammad Isa Ahmad and Nur Hamizah Ahmad are in Singapore for a training camp in preparations for the upcoming 15th FINA World Championships in Spain.
The team arrived in Lion City on Monday and will depart for Barcelona on July 23 for the July 19 August 4 competition, since the swimming events will only begin on July 28.
Nikles will take part in the both the men's 50-metre and 100m freestyle events while Muhammad Isa will swim in the men's 50m and 100m breaststroke events.
Tiara will swim in the women's 50m and 100m freestyle while Nur Hamizah in both the 50m and 100m backstroke events.
The national swimmers are training at the United World College South East Asia in Singapore.
National swim coach, Eric Landa, is looking at making full use of their time there to be completely ready for the tournament.
"Ramadhan has started and this means that both the swimming pool and gym are very sparsely available to us," said Landa.
"It basically comes down to one hour per day of swimming for six days, which is not enough for what we usually do (20 hours a week for 50 weeks a year) and certainly not enough to prepare for a competition such as the World Championships in three weeks time from now.
"Since we are very serious about taking part in any international tournament, from the beginning when I arrived, it was never an option to participate from an under-trained situation," he added.
"This is simply not acceptable. When you go, you must be ready and eager to do better than ever before only then participation becomes useful and meaningful.
"Any other mindset such as going there as a tourist is useless and not acceptable at this level in my opinion," continued the Dutchman.
The team had looked at different options for training Spain, south of Europe, Asia and eventually came to this as the best option.
Landa felt it was in their best interest and that there will be no distractions during their training.
"With 20 hours of water-work and eight hours of land-work we have a great base here for working hard," said Landa.
"We are eating and sleeping in the boarding facilities of the school and there is no luxury at all, this is a great location with no distractions no TV nor internet," added the former Egypt national swim coach.
"It is great for the athletes to get back to the basics and emerge stronger than before," he concluded.
