Julien smashes 23-year mark at Short Course

Julien who broke the 50m back record on both Thursday and Friday sped to the wall in one minute 3.74 seconds to erase the 1993 100m backstroke open record of Sangeeta Puri of 1:04.68. This was just one of few national records that fell during Day Three, in what is proving to be a very fast National Aquatic Centre.

Amira Pilgrim won the open female 50m butterfly in 28.35 ahead of Julien (28.43). Pilgrim in the process erased her own 15-17 record of 28.51 which she set in July. The UTT athlete also went on to win the gold in the 50m breaststroke in a time of 34.46 Jeron Thompson of Atlantis Aquatics got to an early start breaking the 50m breaststroke 15-17 mark in the morning prelims with a time of 28.66. In his silver medal finish in the afternoon finals session, Thompson set the bar higher for himself and future age groupers with a 28.32 clocking.

The old 15-17 record was held by his teammate Abraham Mc- Leod in 28.76. McLeod, now 24, won the open race in 27.49. Thompson also got a bronze on the night in the 50m butterfly in 25.68.

In Thompson-like fashion, Zarek Wilson broke the 9-10 record in the 100m freestyle male in both the prelims and finals. The Blue Dolphins athlete clocked 1:01.96 in the preliminaries - lowering his previous time of 1:02.37 - and further improved with a gold medal winning 1:00.18 in the final.

Jada Chatoor of Marlins won gold in the 400m Individual Medley in a new meet record of 5:19.86 surpassing the old time of Sabrina David of 5:21.18.