Ten Year-Old Israeli Record Falls -- December 26, 2004

Swimming / Malul breaks decade-old record at last short-pool meet of season

By Yair Ben-Ami

KIRYAT BIALIK, December 25. MICKEY Malul of Maccabi Kiryat Bialik broke an Israeli national record set more than a decade ago yesterday at the Millennium Meet at his home pool in the season's final competition, according to a story by Yair Ben-Ami in Haaretz.

Malul, 19, shaved two-hundredths of a second off the 50-meter breaststroke (short course) record with a time of 28.57 seconds, breaking a record set in 1994 by Vadim Alexsayev.

In the women's 400-meter freestyle event, new immigrant Olga Beresnyeva, who represented Ukraine at the Athens Olympics, recorded the second-best Israeli time ever, at 4:15.81 - just nine-hundredths off the national record.

The meet continues over the weekend, with Yoav Gath reportedly returning to the pool tomorrow after a year-long break.