Yee Chun Leong
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
IT WAS a good outing for Christian Nikles as swam his way to two national open records at the FINA Swimming World Cup #7 in Doha last week.
He started his campaign with a new record in the men’s 50m backstroke event after clocking 28.89 seconds on Friday at the Hamad Aquatic Centre.
He set a new record in the 100m backstroke with a time of 1:02.75 after beating his previous best of 1:02.93 which he managed during the Brunei Open in September.
The 21-year-old then managed a second national open record in the 100m backstroke event with a time of 1:02.75 on Saturday.
It bettered his previous time of 1:02.93 which he set during the Brunei Open in September.
He also competed in the 200m backstroke event (2:21.15) as well as the 100m freestyle event (55.19s).
Nikles was surprised as he wasn’t expecting to put up such times in the November 7-9 tournament at the Qatar capital.
“I was quite surprised with my performances in Doha. Muis (Muhammad Isa Ahmad) and I have been racing over the weekends leading up to the meet while also going under some hard training so expectations were low,” said Nikles in an interview with BruSports News yesterday.
“We weren’t properly tapered for the meet but we did have a few days of rest and recovery.
“Breaking two national records at this point in time with the amount of training load shows that I’m in a good place… a better one than I was in September,” he added.
“My backstroke seems to be improving a lot in the short time that I have trained so it’s exciting to see where I’ll be in the coming months,” continued Nikles.
Meanwhile, Muis contested in the 50m (30.58s), 100m (1:08.88) and 200m (2:37.84) breaststroke events while nursing a slight strain on his inner thigh.
“Muis is swimming according to plan and we are not peaking him as yet because this is a warm up meet for him ahead of the SEA Games (at the end of the month),” said team manager Ang Beng Siong in a press release.
“There are one or two departments in his technique that need some minor adjustments and we have about a month to adjust,” he concluded.
Besides Muis, Nur Haziq Samil is the other Bruneian swimmer listed for the upcoming SEA Games.
