Christian Nikles has signed off from swimming - a sport he contested in for over 15 years. The 25-year-old made the announcement last month on social media after representing the country at the SEA Games in May. He is now ready to move on and BruSports News caught up with him.
Q. How come you made the decision to retire from swimming?
I have other life goals. I can’t divide my time and energy with my passion for swimming and my aspirations of financial security and a working career.
I’m also not paid a salary as a national athlete and realise that my endeavours as an athlete only grant me the thrill of competition and sport.
I’m at a point in my life where many my age are beginning to support themselves and are building towards their future. I’m ready to focus on that too.
Also, having done a sport for so long and to pursue it at such a high level takes a huge toll physically, mentally and emotionally.
Swimming is ruthless. You have no guarantee of personal bests or any improvements, even after your best months or even years of training.
That 'grind' was too much, especially after 15 years.
I knew that my desire to pursue competitive swimming was fading when I realised I wasn’t always 'all in' in my training.
I didn’t want to be dishonest to myself nor my competitors - I disliked the idea of competing without having tried in training, without excitement, or without a desire to do my best during a race.
Knowing that my passion for competitive swimming was dwindling, I wanted to have one last opportunity to compete and finish my career while I still had a positive relationship with the sport.
Having accepted that finality, I found that I enjoyed my last months of training more than I ever had.
I was all in for the SEA Games, and for the last time as a national swimmer.
Q. What's next for you?
For now, I'd like to relax and casually play sports that I haven't had the opportunity to enjoy because of my swimming career.
I'm playing lots of golf with friends and family, as well as football.
However, I would still like be involved in the swimming scene.
I'm a member of the Brunei Darussalam Swimming Association, where I actively support in development of swimming talent in Brunei.
In terms of work, I’m also giving myself a bit of a break.
I had a wonderful opportunity to work with Hammerheads Swimming Club where I was a coach and team manager.
I really enjoyed coaching the talented kids coming through that amazing coaching system and hope to return to it some day.
I will, however, be starting a new exciting career path in the coming months.
For now, I’ll rest after a long 15 years of pursuing sports.
It’s lovely to be able to enjoy some time with friends and family now that I finally have a clear schedule.
Q. How good was your first SEA Games experience?
Amazing. Everything about it was great. My teammates were 100% the best part of it.
Other than that, being around other athletes in the Games Village was cool, except maybe being woken up by a boxing team doing pad work at 6am.
Seeing all the athletes training in the village and getting ready to perform puts you in this different mindset of competition which I’ve never felt before.
Being surrounded by so much sports excellence is something else entirely.
Q. Ending with three new national records at the SEA Games. You must be happy to finish on a high?
Absolutely. For the six months prior I've been training with coaching staff at Hammerheads.
We recorded my races over the past 6 months of competitions and broke each of my races down into segments and analysed how my technique looked, how fast I was going and highlighted areas of improvement.
On top of that, we worked on imitating race intensity and race pace in training – trying to get my body used to being in and staying in that 100% zone.
After all that work, I’m so happy it translated into new records.
My 100m and 50m freestyle records stood for a long time.
To have finally broken them is a huge testament to the quality of coaching staff at Hammerheads. We worked smarter.
The relay was amazing. The crowd and support were unforgettable.
During our walkout we saw so many supporters there to cheer us on – home supporters who travelled all the way from Brunei to Cambodia, the officials and even other Bruneian athletes.
Hearing their cheers and seeing their support really gave us that sense of belief which helped us find ‘something extra’ during the race.
Afterwards, seeing our time and realising we’d just broken the national record was an incredible relief.
After everything that’s happened in the last few months: from last minute roster changes, our own performance doubts and time trials, to then break the record by over 3 seconds?!
It isn’t a feeling we’ll forget in a long while.
