By Paul Erewuba, Benin
Sixteen National and Festival records have so far been set in the swimming event at the ongoing National Sports Festival (NSF), Edo 2020.
Two of the records were set in National Records (NR), the other 14 records were Festival Records (FR).
Team Edo set a new NR in 4×200m freestyle women relay in swimming in a time of 10:00.53 to erase the old record of 10:10.89 set in 2006.
In the 800m freestyle men, Opute Clinton of Delta set a new NR of 9:34.53 to cancel out the old record of 9:40.20 established in 2006.
Swimming sensation Ifiezegbe Gagbe from Bayelsa, has been the cynosure of all eyes, with her new FR records in six events at the festival so far.
She has created new records in 100m Freestyle, 400m individual medley, 1500m freestyle, 200m freestyle and the 400m freestyle respectively.
The Bayelsa swimmer returned in a time of 1:01.54 in the 100m freestyle for women, against the former FR of 1:02.66 set in 2012.
Gagbe also set new FR of 5:46.95 in the 400m individual medley to erase the 2006 FR of 5:47.95.
The queen of the pool also set new FR of 21:04.92 in the1500m freestyle women to cancel out 21:05.10 set in 2018.
The athlete further created new FR of 2:17.05 in 200m as against 2018 FR of 2:20.28 and 5:04.30 in 400m to erase the old 2012 FR of 5:09.71.
Another athlete, Timipamere Akiayefa of Delta, created two new records in 50m Backstroke for women and in the 50m Butterfly.
She returned in a time of 31:73 in the 50m Backstroke to cancel out the previous record of 32:10 set in 2006 while she set new FR 50m Butterfly record of 29: 34 to erase the 2018 record of 29:87.
Akiayefa, along with her colleagues, similarly created a new FR record in the 4×100m freestyle when they finished the race in a time of 4:20.98 to erase the 2018 record of 4:22.56.
NAN reports that other records created are in the 100m Breaststroke for men and women, 4×200m freestyle women, 50m Butterfly men, 100m Butterfly men and the 800m freestyle men.