[Photo: Darren topped the rankings after a recent five-day selection trial for Byte CII sailors to represent Singapore at next month's inaugural Asian Youth Games.]

1. JOSEPH SCHOOLING, 14, ANGLO-CHINESE SCHOOL (INDEPENDENT), SWIMMING

After bagging the gold in the C Boys' 50m and 100m butterfly at last year's Schools National Swimming Championships, Joseph repeated his feat this year.

Joseph Schooling (Photo:ST)

But this time, he went one better, setting new marks for both events. He rewrote his own National Under-14 100m butterfly record at the 50th Schools National Swimming Championships, touching home in 57.55sec in the C Boys' event to eclipse his previous mark of 59.40sec set at the Singapore National Age Group meet in March.

He then clocked 27.03sec in the 50m to erase the meet record of 27.34 set by Raffles Institution's Lee Zheng Kai in the heats a week ago.

2. DARREN CHOY, 15, SINGAPORE SPORTS SCHOOL, SAILING

Darren (in main photo), along with Najwa Jumali, 14, from Raffles Girls School, topped the rankings after a recent five-day selection trial for Byte CII sailors to represent Singapore at next month's inaugural Asian Youth Games.

Finishing second in the final race secured top spot for Darren, who fended off competition from National Byte Youth Champion Terence Choo.

3. LIANE WONG, 15, CHIJ TOA PAYOH, FENCING

Soft-spoken Liane was crowned individual champion in the B Girls' foil category at this year's Schools National Fencing Championships.

Liane Wong (Photo:ST)

It was her third consecutive success - she has clinched gold in the C Girls' foil for the past two years.

In March, she placed third in women's foil at the Selangor Open and is a potential Youth Olympic Games (YOG) fencer - she is currently top in her age group (16 and 17 years) in the YOG selection squad.

4. KERRY TAN, 14, RAFFLES INSTITUTION, TABLE TENNIS

Born and bred in Singapore, Kerry is among seven others (four boys and four girls) who have been selected to feature in next year's YOG squad.

Kerry Tan (Photo:ST)

Along with his squad mates, he is undergoing intensive training. They headed to China last December and in March to spar with quality opposition.

Kerry, whose dream since childhood was to represent Singapore, said he is ready to face any obstacles. That includes having to balance his studies with sports.

5. SHANTI PEREIRA, 13, SINGAPORE SPORTS SCHOOL, ATHLETICS

Following in the footsteps of her elder sister and national sprint sensation Valerie, Shanti is already showing that she has the potential for greatness.

At the recent Schools National Track and Field Championships, she was gunning for her sister's 2004 C Girls 200m meet record of 26.58sec but just missed it with her time of 26.92sec.

Nevertheless, Shanti is one to look out for - she anchored the Sports School's 4x400m C Girls team to a comfortable win at the meet, and is confident of breaking her sister's record by next year.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.