Swimming for American Samoa, Glenister won his eight-man heat in the 50-meter freestyle early Thursday morning at the Water Cube in Beijing.

He finished 71st out of 97 swimmers. The top 16 times advanced to the semifinals.

His time of 25.45 seconds is American Samoa’s national and Olympic record.

Glenister beat second-place finisher Hamza Abdo of Palestine by 0.15 seconds.

“It was all right, yes, it was a personal best and a national record,” Glenister told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in a radio interview after his race.

Glenister entered the competition with a seed time of 26.99 and shaved more than 1.5 seconds off his personal best.

“He was very excited,” said his mother, Moni Glenister. “It was a very good race for him. The American Samoan team was excited to see him win his heat.”

France’s Amaury Levaux set an Olympic record and recorded the top time of the preliminary round at 21.46 seconds. Ben Wildman-Tobriner recorded the top American time at 21.75.

Glenister is a 2007 Temple graduate and a sophomore cadet at the U.S. Military Academy.

While with the Wildcats, Glenister was an all-state and academic all-state swimmer. In his first season swimming for the Army Black Knights, Glenister registered a pair of the team’s top times in his strongest events, the 100 and 200 butterfly.

An injury that caused him to miss last year’s World Championships prevented Glenister from swimming either of those events at the Olympics.

Glenister was selected to be American Samoa’s first male Olympic swimmer because his parents, Roland and Moni, are of American Samoan descent.

Army coach Mickey Wender served as coach for Glenister and another American Samoan swimmer.

Glenister will leave Beijing on Sunday for West Point, N.Y., to begin the fall semester.

“It’s been the opportunity of a lifetime for him,” Moni Glenister said.