Baqlah smashes two Jordan swimming records

AMMAN — Olympian Khader Baqlah has continued his superb form by setting two new Jordanian records in the finals of the 10th Asian Swimming Championships in Tokyo, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.

The 18-year-old qualified to the finals of both the 100-metre and 50-metre freestyle races where he broke his previous records, and became the first Jordanian to swim sub-50 seconds in the 100m. His time of 49.88 was more than half-a-second faster than his previous best and secured sixth behind a world-class field that was led home by former Olympic and Korean World Champion Taehwan Park.

In the 50m, Baqlah shaved just under a quarter-of-a-second off his previous Jordan best time to finish eighth in a time of 23.03 seconds. That race produced joint winners in Japan’s Katsumi Nakamura and China’s Hexin Yu.

Also at the same venue, rising star Mohammad Bedour set a qualifying time for the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires for the 50m butterfly. The 16-year-old also showed that he is improving in the freestyle by clocking a new personal best of 52.34 seconds in the 100m.