Two young Indonesian swimmers, Adelia Chantika Aulia and Mochammad Akbar Putra Taufik, kicked off the Indonesian swimming team's performance at the 2025 World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championship on the first day, Tuesday, which took place at the Aquatics Complex Otopeni, Romania.
Indonesian junior swimming team coach Albert Christiadi Sutanto assessed that both athletes performed quite well even though they still looked nervous because it was their first time participating in a world championship.
"I think they fought well today , but they looked nervous because this was the first competition for the five Indonesian athletes competing here," Albert told ANTARA via instant message on Tuesday.
Chantika (14) competed in the women's 100-meter backstroke and finished 29th out of 88 participants with a time of 1 minute 03.78 seconds. This time was just shy of her personal best (PB) of 1:03.06.
Meanwhile, Akbar (17) competed in the men's 400-meter freestyle and finished 42nd out of 83 participants with a time of 4:05.78. This time was still below his best time of 4:01.16.
Albert explained that Chantika was able to perform consistently despite not achieving her best time. As for Akbar, he believed there was a strategic error during the race.
"Akbar raced too fast in the first 200 meters so he couldn't maintain his pace in the remaining 200 meters," said Albert.
Albert hopes that the athletes can improve their performance in the following days.
"Hopefully they can perform better tomorrow," said Albert.
Chantika is scheduled to compete again in four other events, namely the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle, 50-meter backstroke, and the women's 200-meter backstroke.
