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Aflah Prawira Breaks 67-Year Old Asian Games Record in Men’s 800 Free

SWIMMING AT THE 2018 ASIAN GAMES

By winning the first heat of the men’s 800 free, Indonesia’s Aflah Prawira gave the home-crowd at the 2018 Asian Games a thrill. This is just the 2nd time that the men’s 800 free, which will be an Olympic event for the first time in 2020, has been held at the games. In spite of including the 50 meter stroke races (which are still not Olympic events) in the last 3 editions of the Asian Games, the ‘other’ distance races weren’t added until Tokyo.

Prawira was the fastest swimmer in the first heat of the race in 8:03.87. The old Meet Record was set in 1951, when Singapore’s Neo Chwee Kok won in 11:02.2.

In Sunday’s timed-final race, the fastest swimmers (including Sun Yang will swim in the evening, and all 8 of the swimmers in that fastest heat are seeded faster than Prawira’s record. In other words: his hold on that mark will probably be short-lived.

It wasn’t the only mark that went down in the race, however. It also took nearly 3 seconds from his own Indonesian National Record that was set at 8:07.50 in June at the Singapore Championships. The 20-year old also holds long course National Records in the 400 free (3:54.15), 1500 free (15:28.69) and 400 IM (4:22.73) that are in danger later in this meet.

 

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Boknows34
6 years ago

Zhang Lin’s world record in the 800 free will also likely survive for at least 67 years.

Emanuele
Reply to  Boknows34
6 years ago

Nah… by 2040 is gone

Atohitotsu
6 years ago

Wouldn’t the first 800 split of any recent 1500 race broken that old record?

Love to Swim
Reply to  Atohitotsu
6 years ago

Maybe since men’s 800 was never officially an event in Asian Games after the 1951 Games, split from 1500 was not recognized.

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Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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