Andrea Agius still on progress path in 100m breaststroke race

Andrea Agius, one of a small Maltese squad of three swimmers who are currently competing in the 14th FINA World Swimming Championships in Shanghai, China, started off with a new national mark yesterday.

Agius and his national team colleague Andrew Chetcuti were competing on the first day of the eight-day swimming event at the Oriental Sports Centre which saw a huge number of swimmers en-gaged in the pool.

Agius swam the 100 metres breaststoke race in 1 minute 06.13 seconds, 1.03 seconds inside his own previous best of 1:07.16 set recently.

Overall, Agius was classified in the 68th place out of 81 entries.

In another event, Chetcuti sprinted the one-lap butterfly race in 25.54, finishing in 37th place from 54 starters.

Swimming events in Shanghai continue until next Sunday while the next races for Maltese swimmers will be today.

The other member in the Malta team is Nicola Muscat.

In a comment before leaving the islands for China, coach Andy Colbourn had urged his swim-mers to maintain their standards despite the strains of a long sea-son that also included the Games of the Small States of Europe in June.

“The main goal will be that to maintain our times even though I would not exclude the possibility of a new record in Shanghai,” he was reported as saying last week.

Agius’s new national mark yesterday justifies the coach’s words and continues to provide ample proof that most of the national team’s goals this season will be achieved.