Competing in her most prominent swim meet of her young career, 16-year-old Alexandra Gabor achieved a personal best time.

Earlier this week, the Whitehorse Glacier Bear team member completed her first race at the World Championships in Rome in the women's 200-m freestyle. She finished an impressive 20th out of 92 swimmers.

Gabor's time of 1:58.63 also lowered the B.C. Senior and 15-17 Girls Provincial record, which she set two weeks ago in Montreal.

Gabor finished two tenths of a second behind Canadian teammate Heather Maclean, who was second alternate in the semi-final today.

Maclean established a new Canadian record in the 200-m free in Montreal to qualify for the World Championships. Gabor was hoping to post a better result today.

"I'm glad I got a best time in the race, but I was definitely hoping for a lot better," said Gabor, in a press release.

Both Gabor and Maclean were also a part of the women's 4x200-m freestyle relay event, which happened on Thursday.

There, Gabor swam the third leg of the women's 4x200m relay and helped the Canadian team qualify fourth in the preliminaries.

As a result the team made the finals, which was a goal of theirs.

In the final, the lone Yukoner had a strong swim, pulling the team to from seventh back to fifth place, before watching the final Canadian swimmer finish eighth.

The team set a Canadian record in the preliminary and again in the final.

Other team members included Montreal's Genevieve Saumur, Julia Wilkinson of Stratford, Ont.,and Heather Maclean of Toronto.

The Chinese team won the event, setting a new world record, edging out the United States and Great Britain.

Whitehorse Glacier Bears Head Coach Marek Poplawski was impressed with how Gabor did at the World Championships.

"I think she proved that she can handle the pressure and it's fantastic," he said. "It's a good time for the future that if she qualifies for big meets that she will do well."

Poplawski was selected to attend the World Championships as a coach, however his obligations to the Glacier Bears prevented him from going.