Eight national records for Maldives at World Aquatics Championships

Maldivian swimmers have set eight new national records at the 22nd World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, including a new mark in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay.

The mixed relay team including Meral Ain Latheef, Amna Thazkiya Mirsad (Thazky), Mohamed Rihan Shiham, and Mohamed Aan Hussain clocked a time of 4:04.21 in the heats, surpassing the previous record of 4:12.35 set at the 11th Asian Age Group Aquatics Championships.

That record was held by a team which included Aan, Ali Imran, Aishath Ulya Shaiq, and Aishath Ainee Abdul Hameed.

The team also broke the national record in the 4x100m medley relay with a time of 4:40.23 which is 8.28 seconds faster than the previous record.

In individual events, all four swimmers; Aan, Thazky, Meral, and Rihan set new national records.

Meral set a national record in the women’s longcourse 200m individual medley with a time of 2:44.34. She also competed in the 100m butterfly, finishing in 1:16.73. Meral holds the current record for this event as well, which she set last year with a time of 1:13.96 at the 19th National Swimming Championships in Singapore.

Rihan broke his own record in the men’s 200m butterfly, finishing in 2:25.20. He also swam the 400m individual medley in 5:15.03, slightly behind his previous record of 5:14.03 set at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou.

Aan set new national records in both the men’s 100m and 50m freestyle events, clocking 53.80 and 23.81 seconds respectively.

Thazkiya, aged just 14, broke two national records. She swam the women’s 100m backstroke in 1:13.49, beating the previous record held by Hamna Ahmed by over four seconds. She also broke the 100m freestyle record with a time of 1:04.04, surpassing the previous mark set by Aishath Ulya Shaiq last year.