Fraidden, 23, did not expect to win the gold and create a new meet record in the 400m freestyle S10.

He clocked 5 minutes 7.78 seconds in the swimming event which started today at the National Aquatic Centre, Bukit Jalil, here, erasing the record of 5:16.52s held by Hadee Pawan from Thailand.

Meanwhile, Hadee who participated to defend his gold medal and record achieved at the Korat meet in Thailand last year, had to be contented with the silver when he clocked 5:16.90s. The bronze medal went to Eric Villanueva from the Philippines.

“I could not believe that I could swim so well today. I have participated in this event four times and only managed to win the silver in the past,” the athlete from Bintulu, Sarawak told Bernama.

Fraidden said he would now put in more effort to enable him to go further in sports.

“I intend to compete at the London Paralympic Games (2012) and for this purpose, I have to work harder.

“Previously, when I started to participate in swimming, it was merely for fun. Now, I begin to see that athletes like us (the disabled) can also go far in sports and not merely for recreation. Now, I am being trained at the National Sports Council and this has helped me a lot in improving my performance,” he said.

Besides the 400m freestyle event, Fraidden together with his three teammates — David Kangyu Kulek, Nik Mohd Tarmizi Nik Mohd Nor and Mohd Zamry Sapiee — won the bronze in the 4×100m medley today.

Fraidden is also competing in the 50m butterfly stroke and 200m freestyle events.

2009/08/16 – BERNAMA