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Namibia: Records Tumble At World Swimming Champs
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The Namibian (Windhoek)
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
Namibian swimmers performed extremely well at the 9th Fina Short Course World Swimming Championships in Manchester, England where they competed against the best in the world.
The Namibian Swimming Union selected three swimmers who made the qualifying criteria for participation at the championships.
First-time international participant Christine Minders made the most of her opportunities and broke both the 400 metre freestyle 15/16-year-old age group and Open Namibian records with a time of 4:38,95.
She also did very well in the 200m freestyle event and once again broke the 15/16-year-old age group record with a personal best time of 2:10,89.
This was her best performance of the gala and earned her 679 Fina points.
Fina points are the official point system used worldwide to rank swimmers according to the standards set by Fina.
She also came very close to bettering the 100m freestyle record of Jonay Briedenhann, missing it by a mere 0,03 seconds.
Seasoned international participant Alex Ray once again pulled off some great races at the championships.
Although he did not swim personal best times in the 50m or 100m butterfly events, he stepped up in the 200m Individual Medley to improve the Namibian Open record from 2:16,61, which was previously held by Byron Briedenhann, to a new record time of 2:14,52.
He also broke the 54-second mark for the 100m freestyle event and established a new Namibian Open record of 53,88 seconds, which amounted to 655 Fina points.
Jonay Briedenhann had a great championship and will return home with a bag full of age group and Open Namibian records.
She broke the 50m Open Namibian breaststroke record of the legendary Dorothea Neumeister with a new record time of 34,47 seconds.
This was the last of the short-course swimming records still to be held by the great Dorothea Neumeister.
Jonay also broke both the 17/18-year-old age group and Namibian Open records in the 100m breaststroke event with a new record time of 1:14, 29 seconds (684 Fina points), the 100m Individual Medley event in a new record time of 1:06,60 (739 Fina points) and the 200m freestyle event with a record time of 2:07,53 (734 Fina points).
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Her best performance however came in the 200m Individual Medley where she improved the age group and Namibian Open record by almost five seconds to a new record time of 2:20,97 which amounted to 763 Fina points.
According to the Executive Committee of the Namibia Swimming Union (NASU) Namibia did extremely well compared to the other southern African countries at the World Championships, while the 2007/2008 swimming season should go down as the best season for many years in swimming.
The 2007/08 swimming season comes to an end this Friday, April 18 when the Final gala takes place at the Marlins Pool in Windhoek.
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