Four national swimmers broke 11 records at last week's 1st Southeast Asian (SEA) Open Swimming Championships in Singapore.

Christian Nikles, Muhammad Isa Ahmad, Nur Hamizah Ahmad and Amnahliyani Husain smashed five national records and six age group records at the June 13-17 swimming competition, a feat national coach Eric Landa couldn't be happier about.

Once again it was 14-year-old Nikles who shone the brightest, setting seven of the 11 records at the Singapore Sports School three national records and four age group records, one of which dated back to 1994.

Landa felt the results were just reward for the swimmers, all of whom are part of his Centre of Excellence programme where they put in 20 hours a week for 50 weeks a year.

"We are definitely on the right track," insisted Landa in a Press release issued yesterday.

"We are not there yet and we are well aware of that, but it is good and encouraging to see that all the hard work is paying off for them," added the national coach.

"Our swimmers are mostly juniors, (some) as young as 14 years old. They are at the start of their swimming career (and) it is great to see many of them making finals already, placing amongst the top eight (from the heats) and improving their times at every single competition.

"We have a very young team and we started last year with the goal in mind to win a medal at the 2017 or 2019 SEA Games. Therefore with this new competition, we don't have to wait every two years (for the SEA Games) to measure and assess where we are in that process.

"We are not expecting to win medals at this competition yet since this is an open event with senior swimmers," added the Dutch.

The three national open and age group records Nikles set were in the 50 metres freestyle (25.28 seconds), 100m freestyle (56.30s) and 50m butterfly (27.27s).

He also carved a new age group record in the 200m freestyle at 2.08.01, slashing 17 seconds off the old record of 2.08.18.

He held the old records in the 50m freestyle (25.30s) and 100m freestyle (56.41s) and finished eighth in the former and 11th in the latter during his races in Singapore.

Nikles also finished eighth in the 50m butterfly, breaking the old record of 27.52s set by Hanisham Hj Metassin in 1994.

The previous age group record in the 200m freestyle was 2.08.18.

Muhammad Isa set a new national and age group record in the 200m breaststroke, his time of 2.41.60 bettering the previous record of 2.43.02 which he also held.

The 14-year-old athlete also swam in the 50m breaststroke and 100m breaststroke, timing 32.69s in the former and 1.11.90 in the latter finishing seventh in both instances.

His 16-year-old sister Nur Hamizah set a new open and age group record in the 50m backstroke after clocking 33.00s bettering the old record of 33.75s set by Amanda Liew. Finishing eighth in the 50m backstroke, she ended fifth in the 200m backstroke (2.42.61) and sixth in the 100m backstroke (1.14.37).

Amnahliyani, meanwhile, finished 10th in the 50m backstroke with a time of 33.69s, which though faster than Liew, was not jotted down as a record because of Nur Hamizah's faster time of 33.00s.

The 20-year-old swimmer notched a new personal best of 29.88s in the 50m freestyle, where she finished ninth and she also clocked 32.21s in the 50m butterfly.

Brunei were joined by Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam at the meet where diving, waterpolo and synchronised swimming were also contested though the Sultanate did not send any entries.

Courtesy from Brunei Times