The Turkish teenager stable of athletes on both the men’s and women’s sides keeps on improving, as evidenced by a couple of notable swims that took place over the weekend.
First, at a domestic event in the city of Mersin, 16-year-old Atakan Malgil did damage in the men’s long course meters 400 IM, setting a new national age record in the event.
Logging a time of 4:27.21, the Volkan Burak Tuncil-trained Malgil overtook the previous Turkish 4IM age record for 15-16-year-old boys of 4:28.36 that’s been on the books since 2018. Splitting 1:00,23/1:09,08/1:19,52/0:58,38, Malgil now owns this event’s record across the age categories of 13, 14 and 15-16.
Meanwhile, at the Zrenjanin Grand Prix Cup in Serbia, 13-year-old Demir Özdemir broke through with some big short course meters swims in his age group.
The teen fired off a time of 26.72 to place 4th in the men’s 50m backstroke, establishing a new Turkish national age record in the process. He followed suit in the 50m free, also registering a new age mark of 24.25 in the semi-final.
Finally, in the short course 100 IM, Özdemir placed 6th in the open final, scoring a new age record of 1:00.56.