The Sarawak Club swimmers posing with club member Sim Chin Kheng (right, back row), general manager Robert Brodie (third right), team manager Sabrina Tan (second right) and Chung (left) at the Sarawak Club lobby yesterday.
KUCHING: The Sarawak Club swimming team are raring to go in the Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Wong Soon Kai Inter-Club Swimming Championship which kicks off at the Sarawak Aquatic Centre in Petra Jaya today.
Shouldering the challenge are 76 youngsters who are a combination of swimmers from Sarawak Club and Kuching Amateur Swimming Association (Kasa) 2010.
They are also the biggest team in the 14-team competition which has attracted 376 swimmers from Sarawak, Sabah, Brunei and Selangor.
“The swimmers have been training very hard and eagerly looking forward to this prestigious competition,” said coach Michael Chung.
Moreover, he felt that it would be a very good exposure especially for the younger swimmers.
“We have many young swimmers in the team and it will be good to see them compete with their counterparts from other teams,” he said.
The team will be spurred by the home ground advantage and also having the biggest number of swimmers who are vital in collecting the points as the boys, girls and team overall champions will decided by having the highest number of points and not on the number of gold medals won.
“We are gunning for the top three finish and we will also try our best to win the championship,” he said while keeping a wary eye on teams like Sasa, Sea Dragon, Penampang Swimming Association, Power Aquatics and Serian Amateur Swimming Association.
Chung is expecting the competition to be very stiff and interesting with the participation of four invited teams.
“This is the first time we have so many swimmers from outside Sarawak joining the meet and their strengths are unknown,” he added.
Meanwhile, Penampang Swimming Association from Sabah are regarded as serious contenders with 46 swimmers, followed by Power Aquatics (38), Kotas (34), Masa (33), Serian (32), Sea Dragon (31), Sasa (28), Pade Supersharkz (12) Gymkhana (11) Masa (10), Royal Brunei Recreation Club (9) Dashing (9) and Petroliam (7).
Eighty-eight events for breaststroke, free style, butterfly, backstroke, individual medley and relay will be held.
Categories competed for both the boys and girls are Group 1 (15-17 years old), Group 2 (13-14 years old), Group 3 (11-12 years old), Group 4 (9-10 years old) and Group 5 (8 years old and under).
The championship, organised by Amateur Swimming Association of Sarawak (Asas), are jointly hosted by Kasa and Kotas.
Trophies will be awarded to the best boys team, best girls team and the overall team.