Tokome-Garap sets new national record in 50m backstroke

YOUNG Papua New Guinea swimmer Jhnayali Tokome-Garap has set a new national record for the Under-15 girls 50m backstroke after clocking 32.29s and claiming bronze at yesterday’s Oceania Championship.
Tokome-Garap along with seven other PNG swimmers competed at the four-day meet that concluded yesterday at the Gold Coast Aquatic Center.
Apart from Garap, Georgia-Leigh Vele won a bronze on Tuesday and led the women’s relay team to clinch a third bronze for PNG.
The final competition day yesterday saw all eight swimmers featured in five A finals, a B final and three relay finals.
Tokome-Garap led the proceedings with her bronze medal and personal best in the 50m backstroke with Joanna Chen equaling her heats swim time and Felix Devlin displaying an improved performance from his heats time.
Josh Tarere swam a 54.47s outside his 50m heats time while Vele (1:17.47) and Thomas Chen (1:08.26) both swam their personal bests in the 100m .
The 4x50m mixed medley relay team finished in fourth place improving the heats effort by two seconds.
The team representing PNG in this relay was Tokome-Garap, Thomas Chen, Vele and Josh Tarere.
The women’s 4x200m freestyle team took out bronze medal in the final. Vele started off the relay followed by Joanna Chen, Abigail Ai Tom and Tokome-Garap who went stroke for stroke with team Fiji and narrowly missing the silver medal by 0.04s.
The men’s relay team comprising of Chen, Devlin, Nathaniel Noka and Tarere were commended for a hard fought battle with the Fijian side, finishing in fourth place in the event.