SWIMMING AT THE 2018 ASIAN GAMES
- August 19th-24th, 2018
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- Schedule & Results
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.
Zhang Lin’s world record in the 800 free will also likely survive for at least 67 years.
Nah… by 2040 is gone
Wouldn’t the first 800 split of any recent 1500 race broken that old record?
Maybe since men’s 800 was never officially an event in Asian Games after the 1951 Games, split from 1500 was not recognized.