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eventeen-year-old sprinter Safwaturrahman from West Nusa Tenggara broke Franklin Burumi’s 2008 national youth record in the boys’ 60-meter race on Thursday.

“This record breaking is my way of proving my ability after the SEA Games, where I was not fielded,” Safwaturrahman said after timing in at 6.80 seconds at the Youth and Junior Athletics National Championships in Jakarta, beating the previous record of 6.85 seconds set by Papuan Franklin Burumi in 2008.

The second place on Thursday was Noval Kurniawan of Central Sulawesi (7 seconds) while Sutrisno of Central Java finished third (7.07 seconds).

Safwaturrahman said he dreamed of breaking more national records next year. “In 2012, I’m targeting to break the national junior records for the boys’ 100-meter and 200-meter, as I already broke the youth records in those events this year,” Safwaturrahman said.

At the Thailand Open prior to the Southeast Asian Games, he already timed in at 10.63 seconds for the boys’ 100-meter race, while in the boys’ 200-meter he timed in at 21.38 seconds.

The Indonesian Track and Field Association’s (PASI) athlete development chief Budhi Darma Sidi praised Safwaturrahman’s potential.

“His time just now was great because 5/100 seconds time difference is hard to get. This is an improvement for him after his absence from the SEA Games,” Budhi said.

“He has a good posture and outside the track he is always courteous in attitude. I believe he has the potential to become Indonesia’s future top sprinter, as long as we provide him enough time to mature,” Budhi said.

However, he said that the boy, who started in the national training camp in 2009, had a long road before him for qualifying for the Olympics.

At the moment, PASI hopes to qualify Franklin Burumi, Triyaningsih and Agus Prayogo for the Olympics in 2012, although all three also face an uphill road to London.

Budhi said Franklin needed to polish his 10.33-second best time in the men’s 100-meter sprint as well as improve his attitude and discipline for training if he wants to qualify for London, where the qualification standard was between 10.18 and 10.24 seconds.

Long distance specialist Triyaningsih, Budhi said, was currently declining and had to reach the standard qualification time of 2 hours 37 minutes to 2 hours 43 minutes to qualify for the marathon at the Olympics.

“We are also hoping our men’s and women’s relay teams will qualify, but currently they are still struggling with the baton,” Budhi said.

 The London Olympics qualification period for the track and field runs from May 1, 2011 to July 8, 2012.

“By January next year, we hope we can start competing in the qualifier championships for London.”