State swimmers gunning for gold
by Ting Tieng Hee, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on July 7, 2012, Saturday
KUANTAN: National swimmer Erika Kong is putting aside the failure of qualifying for the London Olympics and to focus all of her attention to putting on a good show in Sukma XV swimming competition that will commence at Wisma Belia swimming pool tomorrow.
Erika is hoping for her first gold to come from the women’s 400m individual medley and perhaps the second one for the day in the women’s 200m individual medley.
Her father and personal trainer Anthony Kong is quite confident that Erika can deliver the goods for Sarawak Contingent based on her recent improved performance during training since Singapore’s SEA Aquatic Championships held last month where she clocked impressive times in the 200m and 400m individual medley.
Erika had also returned from the Asean Schools Games in Surabaya, Indonesia where she won two silvers in the 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle while in the 200m individual medley she bagged a bronze.
She flew back to Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday and managed to join the state swimming team to Kuantan yesterday morning.
Meanwhile, Anthony also picked two other national swimmers Hii Siew Siew and Vernon Lee to shine in Sukma in which Hii will be competing in the 100m butterfly and 200m butterfly while Lee will compete in the 400m individual medley and 1,500m freestyle.
Apart from this, the coach is also predicting potential gold from the men’s breaststroke, men’s 4x100m relay and women’s 4x200m relay events.
“I am expecting this year’s Sukma swimming events to be very competitive and I believe we can win eight to ten gold barring any unforeseen circumstances and that our swimmers will deliver to what is expected,” he said.
According to him, the battle in the pool would be interesting because some states are fielding “imported” swimmers from Australia and the United States who are set to dominate the men’s short distance events.
Other state Sukma swimmers are namely Allister Chung, Alex Tiong, Welson Sim, Roydon Ong, Tang Chong Heng and Jason Jiang Kulay (men), Annie Chieng, Angela Chieng, Nita Wong, Grace Yii and Sarah-Ann Thorp.
In aquatics alone, there are 48 gold, 48 silvers and 48 bronzes up for grabs in the events to be held from July 8 to 12.
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