Pini adds more to tally

 By HENRY MORABANG

PAPUA New Guinea picked up one gold, one silver and a bronze on Day Three of the swimming competition at the BSP Arena Aquatic Centre in Taurama last night.

Ryan Pini picked up his third gold medal in the 100m freestyle in a time of 50.63s. 

Swim favourite Stephane Debaere of Tahiti finished on 51.04 and Hugo Lambert (51.41) won bronze. 

Pini’s time was 19 seconds outside the Games record set by Tahitian Stephane Debaere (50.44) during the preliminary heat.

Pini won his first gold medal in the 50m backstroke and picked up his second after breaking his own record in 100m butterfly.

Newcomer Savannah Tkatchenko (34.60) won her first Pacific Games medal – bronze – in the 50m breaststroke finishing behind gold medal winner Adeline Williams (32.61) of Tahiti. 

Williams set a new Games record (32.50) in this event in the preliminary heats.  

The silver medal winner was won by Pilar Shimizu of Guam in 33.35.

PNG won silver in the 4×50 mixed medley behind New Caledonia. Fiji picked up the bronze.

New Caledonia swimmers Lara Grangeon and Emma Terebo continued their fine form by smashing two Games records. 

Grangeon broke her own record (4:28.32) in the 400m freestyle set earlier in the preliminary heat with a time of 4:20.40 in the finals.

She finished ahead of Fiji’s Matelita Buadromo (4:36) and Charlotte Robin (4.41.97) of New Caledonia.

In the 50m breaststroke for men, Amini Fonua broke the Games records in 28.02 to win the country’s first gold medal in swimming ahead of Stephane Debaere (28.81) of Tahiti and Rainui Teriipaia-Rentier (29.11) from Tahiti.

The previous record was set by Debaere earlier on during the preliminary finals at the same venue yesterday morning.

In 400m men’s freestyle, Rahiti De Vos of Tahiti set another Games record in a time of 3.56.82 to win gold medal ahead of Hugo Lambert (4.02.90) and New Caledonia Jeremie Dfourmantelle (4.04.96) for bronze.