KUCHING: Sarawak junior swimmers brought home 24 gold medals, 15 silver and 8 bronze in the recent 13th Singapore Invitational Swimming Championship 2017 held at Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) from August 12–13.
The gold medal haul is one of Sarawak’s junior best achievements in their international outing in which they defeated their competitors from India, Philippines, China and host, Singapore.
“This is another international exposure which were given to our upcoming swimmers and they have proven their mettle in the recent meet in Singapore,” said Dr Ong Kong Swee, Chief Executive Officer of Sarawak Sports Corporation (SSC).
“They are all still young and such exposure, especially at international level can bring out the best in them even the competition is very stiff,” he said while commending the swimmers who are aged 17 and below.
According to Dr Ong, a total of 8 boys and 2 girls accompanied by their chief coach and former national swimmer, Dieung Ak Manggang from Sibu took part in the two-day event.
“This is a good sign of progress shown by our young swimmers who may need similar overseas exposure trips to further boost their level of confidence and motivate them further,” he added.
He said among the key areas for the young state swimmers to improve is on their timing and preparation on the starting blocks which may be due to lack of exposure.
Nevertheless, Dr Ong expressed optimism for the swimmers to be more motivated after competing against their peers from overseas, especially Singapore which had produced world record breakers such as Joseph Schooling who defeated Michael Phelps in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
