Official Website of Brunei Darussalam National Olympic Council
NEWS & EVENTS
Who will swim in London waters?
Saturday, May 12, 2012


Both Anderson Lim
Chee Wei (L) and
Christian Nikles (R) are
vying for the one spot to
represent the Sultanate
at the upcoming London
2012 Olympics.
Pictures: BT file

The battle has reached its pinnacle. Will it be Anderson Lim Chee Wei or Christian Nikles?

The duo is slugging it out for that one spot to fly the flag for the Sultanate at the London 2012 Olympics.

Lim is looking to set some new records at the GCST 2012 'Trials Qualifier' Meet, which starts today at the FGCU Aquatics Centre in Florida, United States.

The 16-year-old Bruneian will be among some 600 swimmers at the FINA certified May 11- 13 event.

He will be competing in the 50-metre, 100m and 200m freestyle events as well as the 100m butterfly.

Nikles currently holds onto the national records for three of those events.

The records under the 14-year-old are 50m freestyle (25.63s), 100m freestyle (56.41s) and 100m butterfly (1:01.63).

Lim holds onto the national record for the 200m freestyle event with a time of 2:06.40 which he set at the 14th Fina World Championships in Shanghai, China back in July.

This is his final opportunity to try and qualify for the London Games and he hopes that things will go accordingly.

"It should be a good meet and I'm hoping to break some records," said Lim in an interview with The Brunei Times yesterday.

"I have been preparing well for this meet. Tapered well and everything else since my last competition in March," he added.

"This is my last chance to qualify and there are a lot of other swimmers at the meet in a similar situation as me (trying to get universality places at the Olympics)," continued Lim, who is one of the recipients of the London 2012 Olympic Scholarships (with national runner Maziah Mahusin being the other).

The last tournament for Lim was the USA Swimming's Southern Sectional Championships in Orlando, Florida in March.

The Sultanate will be competing at the July 27-Aug 12 Olympics because of the universality places which the world governing bodies for athletics and swimming, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and FINA respectively, have opened to countries who have no qualified athletes.

Brunei Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) is also allocated a universality spot for a female swimmer.It is understood that BASA chose not to nominate any female swimmer as none met the criteria.

The decision was also taken because the country did not send any female swimmers to the 14th FINA World Swimming Championships in Shanghai last July, a prerequisite to swimming in London.

Courtesy from Brunei Times