PENGUINS Swimming Club’s Denilson Cyprianos and Liam O’Hara from Falcons broke five national records at the Matabeleland Short Course gala held at Hillside Teachers’ College on Sunday.

Cyprianos set new national records for the boys’ 14 years and under division 800M freestyle, 200M backstroke and 50M backstroke.

In the 50M backstroke, Cyprianos beat the 31.85 seconds record held by P Wetzlar to set a new one of 31.55s. He went on to beat J Kloppers’ two minutes 30.48 seconds national backstroke record with his two minutes 30.48 seconds.

Cyprianos, a member of the junior national teams, capped his afternoon with a new 800M freestyle record in a time of nine minutes 51.20s. The previous record stood at 10 minutes 22.26s.

O’Hara, who competed in the 15-16 years age group, broke the national 200M breaststroke, which stood at two minutes 28.49s with his time of two minutes 26.41s.

The 15-year-old Falcons swimmer set a new national 800M backstroke record with a time of nine minutes 37.99s. The previous record stood at 10 minutes 04.19s.

Nokuthula Cyprianos, chairperson of the Matabeleland Amateur Swimming Board, said swimmers also broke Matabeleland records, which they are still verifying.

“It is good to see this crop of swimmers doing wonders by breaking records. We applaud the clubs and trainers of these swimmers who are really doing a wonderful job. Besides national records falling, we also had swimmers breaking Matabeleland records. Our next event is Gala Five to be held at City Pool on November 11,” said Nokuthula.

@ZililoR