Pini smashes records

 PAPUA New Guinea’s gold medal hope Ryan Pini set six national records during the National Swimming Championships over the weekend at the Ela Murray International School in Port Moresby.

 The 33-year-old swam in two relay events and four individual races.

Pini bettered his previous national marks in the 50m backstroke (26.70), 100m butterfly (56.19) and 100m freestyle (50.42) as well as helping the national men’s relay team set a new 4x100m freestyle mark of 3 min 48:38 seconds from the previous record of 3:49:97 seconds set in 2008 and anchoring the 4x50m mixed freestyle (1:49.02).

Pini’s 100m freestyle time bettered the 51.61 silver medal-winning swim from the 2011 Pacific Games. 

Pini’s backstroke time was 65 hundredths of a second slower than his 2011 silver-medal effort of 26.05 while his Noumea gold medal-winning 100m butterfly time was 53.93.

The soon-to-be-father is having a great build-up to the Pacific Games, having already competed in two major Australian championships this year  — the Victorian titles and the Australian national titles.

Pini said it was an exciting weekend for the national squad with records tumbling and the team progressing well for the Games in July. 

He said he was focused on swimming well and working a combination with his other teammates but setting national records was a bonus.

“I took some time off after the 2012 Olympic Games and I haven’t been swimming too much but with the Pacific Games, I’ve got back into active training and competition this year and producing these results is awesome,” Pini said.

Other outstanding performances during the meet that saw national records broken was by 15-year-old Savannah Tkatchenko, who set 11 national records in the U15 and the open divisions both in the relay and individual events. PNG Swimming president Elizabeth Wells said she was pleased to see the country’s best swimmers doing well in local competition and challenging themselves in the manner that they were.

She said the national champions were a vital part of the team’s preparation for the July Games.  Wells said the results were an indication of what the swimmers and coaching team had put in with their training and the challenge was to improve over the next two months and set goals as the Games drew closer.