OTOPENI, Romania, August 24, 2025 (ePRESS) – Sri Lanka’s young swimming star MF Muhammad produced the best race of his career when he swam a stunning 29.59 seconds in the men’s 50m breaststroke at the World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championship in Otopeni, Romania on Saturday.
The 18-year-old came within touching distance of history, missing Kiran Jayasinghe’s national record of 29.48 seconds by just 0.11. It was a powerful and technically polished swim from Muhammad, who has been improving steadily over the past few months.
Only last month, he clocked 29.89 seconds in Colombo, which was the fastest time ever recorded in Sri Lanka. Yesterday, he broke that personal best by three-tenths of a second, showing the consistency and growth that makes him one of the country’s brightest prospects.
Muhammad’s timing placed him 43rd in the world rankings out of 86 swimmers, a remarkable achievement considering the depth of competition at this world stage.
Sri Lanka’s other breaststroker, Aasif Imran, also produced a fine swim in the same event. He clocked 32.71 seconds, improving on his previous best of 33.12. Imran finished 78th in the overall rankings, but his personal progress was clear and encouraging for the Sri Lankan camp.
Meanwhile, the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team of Julie Hope, Syesha Anthony, Jessie Seneviratne and Lehara Melegoda came close to setting a new national record. The quartet swam a brilliant race to clock 4:09.71, finishing 24th among 29 nations.
What made the performance even more impressive was that all four swimmers delivered consistent splits. Hope gave Sri Lanka a flying start with her career-best 1:02.06. Anthony followed with 1:02.49, while Seneviratne clocked 1:02.09 in the third lap. Melegoda anchored the race strongly with 1:03.07.
Though they narrowly missed the national mark, the time underlined the progress of Sri Lanka’s women’s relay squad at the international level.
Dr. Ghefari Dulapandan, Sri Lanka Team Leader and former World Championship swimmer, hailed the young team’s progress.
“Our young swimmers have made exceptional strides and performed now at the world stage, and it’s great that they will now be pushing the seniors to train harder in order to achieve greater heights,” he said.
