National aquatics head coach
Eric Landa during a training
session at the National
Aquatics Centre at the
Hassanal Bolkiah Sports
Complex in Berakas in this
file photo. Picture: BT file
National aquatics head coach Eric Landa was largely satisfied with Brunei's campaign at the World Championships in Barcelona.
Muhammad Isa Ahmad was the country's best swimmer after setting a new national and age group record in the men's 50m breaststroke when his time at the turn at the 100m breaststroke was 31.29s breaking the national and age group record of 31.58s which he set in April.
However, none of the other three swimmers were able to hit the mark in their respective events though Christian Nikles came the closest after equaling his own national open and age group record when he swam 55.55s during the men's 100m freestyle.
"This tournament has turned out alright for us," noted Landa on Saturday.
"It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either.
"We have gotten a bit spoiled by always returning with a great number of national records after each tournament, (so) the day had to come that some tournament would have a less fruitfull harvest.
"At the end of the day we had quite a few personal best times here.
"We had one open record from Muhammad Isa on the 50m breaststroke and two age group records; one from Muhammad Isa in the 50m breaststroke and the other from Christian Nikles in the 100m freestyle.
"On top of that, Christian equaled his own national open record in the 100m freestyle," he pointed out.
Muhammad Isa swam 31.68s in the 50m breaststroke on Tuesday and Nikles' 25.52s on Friday, which was 0.43s shy of his national open and age group record of 25.09s which he set at June's 5th ASEAN School Games in Vietnam.
Tiara Shahril Anwar closed Brunei's campaign out after setting a new personal best in the women's 50m freestyle on Saturday, her second in as many races.
Her finish of 28.74s in her heat bettered her previous best of 29.24s, though the national record still stands at 28.23s which Amanda Liew set at the 2009 World Championships in Rome.
Tiara also set a new personal best in the women's 100m freestyle on Thursday when she was just 0.34s shy of her national record after clocking 1.02.88, with Liew still the record holder after clocking 1.02.54 in 2010.
Muhammad Isa's older sister Nur Hamizah was the other Bruneian at the meet.
Despite mistiming her finish, she clocked 1.13.25 in the women's 100m backstroke on Monday, just 0.65s off the national record she set in June (1.12.60).
Nur Hamizah recorded 33.85s in the women's 50m backstroke on Wednesday, with her old record of 32.95s still standing.
The team trained in Singapore from July 8-23 in the final stage of prepration for Barcelona, a necessary move due to the shortened operating hours at the National Aquatics Centre at the Hassanal Bolkiah Sports Complex in Berakas because of the fasting month.
Landa said he has gone through the team's training regiment and remains confident that his swimmers will be able to break more records in the future.
"We have evaluated the training process and competition outcome right after the last competition race on Saturday and we all know (swimmers and coach) what to work on and how to progress from here," said the Dutchman.
"We've done some biomechanical analyses and there are good focus points to work on for the next months and years.
"We're all excited about that and looking forward to work hard to secure a continuous progressive improvement in results for swimming in Brunei!"
