Exciting national dipper, Leon Seaton is already reaping the benefits of his five-month FINA scholarship in Florida at the high-performance facility – Azura Florida Aquatics.
Only two weeks into the programme, Seaton was able to compete in the 2020 Patriot Aquatics Winter Invite at the weekend where he went on to clock five new Personal Best (PB) times to improve his chances of qualifying for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
In the Open Boys 50 yards freestyle, he clocked 23.01 seconds, bettering his old time of 24.75 seconds; he also clocked 50.11 seconds in Open Boys 100 yards Freestyle, shaving two seconds off his previous best.
The Guyanese went into the Open boys 100 yards backstroke with a best of 1:03.56 but went under a minute, clocking 59.35 to set a new personal benchmark.
It was a similar story for the Open Boys 100 yards butterfly where he bettered his previous best of 1:02.11 with a new benchmark of 57.44.
Meanwhile, the Open Boys 200 yards freestyle saw him registering more success after he clocked a new personal best of 1:53.25, besting his previous best of 2:00.11.
“These new times are pretty impressive to me since I’ve never swum short course yards before but I do plan on working harder so that I reduce them even more,” the 16-year old told Stabroek Sports.
He revealed that although the times are quite marked to qualify for the summer games, he is even more keen and eager to use the opportunity at the high-performance facility to become better.
“These new times do not meet the Olympic standards and being my first time swimming short course yards, I would have to work harder to improve on those times and reduce them to the Olympic standards,” Seaton added.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Seaton hadn’t competed since March which makes his recent performances even more encouraging.
