The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bdnews, Dhaka

Mahfizur Rahman Sagar has so far become country's first-ever swimmer to snare all freestyle individual events' gold along with setting three national records in the National Swimming Championship that concluded on Saturday.

Mahfizur, a XI student from Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protisthan, bagged two gold medals on the final day Saturday setting a new record in the 100m freestyle at National Swimming Complex.

He bettered his previous record of 54.48 seconds to finish the 100m freestyle distance clocking 53.22 seconds. He also put Bangladesh Army's Sujan Ali behind to bag the 400m freestyle gold medal taking 4:39.13 minutes on the same day. Mahfizur, who also set new records in 200m freestyle and 1500m freestyle, bagged gold medal in 50m freestyle on the opening day.

The emerging swimmer also took two bronze medals in the 200x4 freestyle and 4x400 freestyle relays as the Bangladesh Army team finished first in both the events.

"I am really happy after bagging all individual freestyle gold medals, and now want to concentrate on the South Asian Games at home so that I can take my national performance to the SA Games," said Mahfizur, whose favourite event is 200m freestyle.

Amirul Islam, a coach from Bangladesh Ansar and member of the swimming federation, could not remember whether country's any swimmer had earlier snared all individual gold medals in freestyle.

Mahfizur's teammate Sonia Akhter was also in the centre of the four-day meet, setting three national records on her way to bagging six gold medals.

Sonia set new records in 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley and also finished first in the 50m butterfly, 100m breaststroke and 4x200 freestyle relay.

On the final day, Sonia bagged gold medal in the 100m breaststroke taking 1:21.80 minutes while Bangladesh Ansar's Sabura Khatun finished second clocking 1:23.13 seconds.

They together bagged 11 gold medals to help the BKSP finish top on the medal table with 16 golds, 12 silvers and 13 bronzes followed by Bangladesh Army, who grabbed 12 golds, 15 silvers and six bronzes.

Bangladesh Ansar finished third with eight golds, nine silvers and six bronzes while Bangladesh Navy became fourth securing six golds, four silvers and eight bronzes.

On the final day, four records including two SAFF records were set up as Mafizur Rahman (400m freestyle), Jahangir Alam of Army (200m breaststroke), the Bangladesh Army 4x100m medley relay team and the Bangladesh Ansar 4x100 medley relay team put records on the electronic board.

Jahangir Alam broke both national and SAFF records to clock 2:27.11 seconds in the 200m breaststroke as the previous best by Karar Samedul Islam achieved 2:27.87 minutes while Indian swimmer Arjun J Jayaprakash took 2:27.12 seconds to set Colombo SAFF record in 2006 in Sri Lanka.

The 23rd National Championship saw two new swimmers come in limelight along with a revival of Shahajan Ali Ronny, who was out of the competition due to hepatitis B since the first Indo-Bangla Bangladesh Games in 2006.

Ronny, who bagged 50m breaststroke gold medal in 2006 SA Games, marked his return with fashion setting two national records in his favourite 50m breaststroke and 100m breaststroke on the third day Friday.

After the competition, the successful swimmers were crying for better training ahead of the SA Games at home in 2009 and urged the organisers to ensure their training aboard.

"I promise you we will start the SA Games camp within 10 days whether we get any support from Bangladesh Olympic Association or the National Sports Council," said federation's new general secretary Mahbubur Rahman.

Rahman also said that he would bring a coach from Chinese or Korean so that the swimmers could learn new technique of swimming.