Swimming in fine health

Swimming in fine health

They may have ended the meet with two silvers, but Singapore's swimmers put up a golden showing at the 2nd Asian Youth Games in Nanjing.

In the final day in the pool on Friday, Samantha Yeo clinched a silver in the girls' 200m breaststroke in 2min 33.72sec, while Marina Chan also finished second in the girls' 100m freestyle in 57.56.

The Republic's 15-strong swim team finished the five days of competition with five golds, 10 silvers and two bronze medals, second behind South Korea (16-7-7).

It is an improved showing by the Singaporean swimmers from the inaugural Games held in Singapore in 2009, where a team led by Quah Ting Wen bagged five golds, two silvers and five bronzes, finishing third behind South Korea (11-11-5) and China (5-5-7).

China, this year's hosts, elected to field a team made up of swimmers from various sports schools, and finished joint-last in the swimming standings alongside Kazakhstan, Macau and Sri Lanka, all with one bronze each.

Singapore Swimming Association technical director and national head coach Ian Turner said: "The five days of swimming have shown just how much potential Singapore have in the pool. It was an outstanding result from the athletes.

Potential

"Singapore can swim only against those nations that send competitive teams... but 73 per cent of all Singapore medals came from swimming."

Quah Zheng Wen was the star of the lot, with three golds and two silvers despite recovering from stomach flu.

Darren Lim, tipped to break Ang Peng Siong's national 50m freestyle record of 22.69 set in 1982, also shone with a gold in the event in Nanjing.

Samantha also won gold in the girls' 50m breaststroke.

The trio are tipped to make a splash at the South-east Asia (SEA) Games in December in Myanmar, along with the likes of Joseph Schooling and Tao Li, and spearhead the next generation of Singapore swimmers.

While warning that the swimmers were still young, Turner said: "Given time, I think the majority of these swimmers will go on and replace many in the current senior group."

The Briton was also cautious about forecasting how the swimmers will do at the 2nd Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing next year.

He said: "Medals at the Youth Olympics will be hard to come by, but with continued hard work, why not? This meet has given many youngsters some great experience."

After the final day of the Games yesterday, Singapore finished sixth in the overall medal standings with five golds, 12 silvers and six bronzes. Not surprisingly, hosts China topped the table (46-23-24).

Singapore were fourth (9-6-15) in the inaugural Games here, but bowling contributed three golds, three silvers and two bronze medals to the overall tally.

The sport was not offered in Nanjing.

sayheng@sph.com.sg


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