AFTER setting a new national long course record at the Rio Olympics last August in the men’s 100m butterfly, Guyanese swimmer Hannibal Gaskin has done it yet again.

He set an unofficial new national record in the short course length of the race last Wednesday, while competing at the ongoing FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) in Ontario, Canada.

Meanwhile Guyanese Jamila Sanmoogan may have also clocked what could possibly be another national short-course record, when she competed in the women’s 50m butterfly yesterday at the Championships.
In his event, Gaskin once again dipped below the one minute mark in the race and clocked 57.62 seconds, at the short course event, way surpassing the reportedly 1:03.50m national short course record held by Joseph Seguina since 2012.

The Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) multiple gold medallist superseded the 58.57 seconds that he clocked in this race at the Summer Olympics a few months ago, giving him something to celebrate, despite finishing eighth in his heats, and 71 overall out of 87 swimmers.
The time also suggests an improvement for the Goodwill Swim Meet gold medallist from the 1:01.47s he achieved at the FINA World Championships in Kazan, just over a year ago. However, the World Championships was also a long course meet.

Gaskin and Sanmoogan are competing in Canada as part of a three-man team from Guyana which also includes another of the country’s season-best Andrew Fowler. Like Gaskin, both swimmers have also seen some development in terms of their timings for their events.
A fellow Olympian, Sanmoogan was in her second event of the Championships when she was out in the women’s 50m butterfly. Swimming out of heat 2, Sanmoogan finished 64th of 73 swimmers and fifth in her heat. However, that tells nothing of the improved 30.35 seconds she made.

The time is way lower than the alleged 35.29 seconds short-course record set by Britany van Lange in 2010 in Dubai.
Sanmoogan shaved a second off the 31.38 seconds that she achieved last year August at the long course Kazan meet. Meanwhile, though she’s been focused on the shorter 50m freestyle for some time now, on Wednesday she shook things up a bit and took on the women’s 100m freestyle.

She clocked a slower 29.39 seconds in her first 50m of the race, but finished the full race in 1:02.63s, ending 111th out of 127 swimmers.
Fowler also swam yesterday. He was out in the men’s 50m freestyle putting together a personal-best 24.72 seconds swim. The time was just outside the 24.17 seconds record in the event that Onan Thom has held since 2006.
He has also been showing continued improvement on the 26.03 seconds in which he had completed the event at Kazan. It also topped the 25.65 seconds he swam at a Barbados Invitational earlier this year.