Forty-one records smashed at swimming meet

 FORTY-ONE records were broken during the National Short Course Swimming Championships at Ela Murray International School’s 25-metre pool last weekend in Port Moresby.

 The Theodist-sponsored competition saw the country’s best swimmers including star Ryan Pini and a returning top female talent Anna-Lisa Mopio-Jane.

The meet saw talented athletes and volunteers from around the country and overseas take part in some great competitive swimming.

PNG Swimming Incorporated president Elizabeth Wells said many talented, enthusiastic swimmers took to the water, some experiencing their first national competition alongside seasoned national and international swimmers.

“We saw some excellent performances from our athletes competing in their individual events in all four strokes over the four sessions during the weekend,” Wells said.

Senior swimmers Pini and Mopio-Jane broke 22 records between them in one of the best performances by a group of swimmers at a national meet.

Pini set new records (open and masters) in the freestyle (50m, 100m), backstroke (50m, 100m, 200m.

The 100m butterfly event saw swimmer Pini clock 56.86 taking the Open and Masters record previously held by himself, while the 100m individual medley event saw 14 year old Leonard Kalate clock 1:06.64 taking Danny Pryke’s record of 1:08.18 held since 2008.

The male 4 x 100 medley relay saw Pini, Ashly Seeto, Sam Seghers, Stanford Kawale swim into the PNG Open record books clocking a finish time of 4:03.12, previously held by Pini, Kieran Chan, Ben Wells, and Felipe Sialis 4:21.72 set in 1999.

Other records included: 50m freestyle female, 12-year-old Ebony Tkatchenko swam 29.54 taking her own age record of 29.91 set in 2014; Open female swimmer, Anna-Lisa Mopio-Jane swam 27.78  taking the Open and Master record in the 25-29 age group.  

The open record was previously held by her and the Masters record by Krystle Babao; Male Open swimmer, Ryan Pini swam 23.99 to take the  Masters Record in the 30-34 age division he set in 2014.

Shannon Liew took the Masters record in the 33-39 age category, clocking 27.06.