Zachary Tan (second left), Hii Puong Wei (second right), Joash Voon (left) and Hii Puong Hou cooling down at the pool yesterday.
KUCHING: Three meet records, which were more than 20 years old, were shattered at the Sarawak Aquatic Centre in Petra Jaya yesterday.
They were among the eight new records created on the first day of the 28th Kuching Age Group Swimming Championship organised by Kuching Amateur Swimming Association (Kasa) 2010.
Hogging the limelight was Hii Puong Wei of SMK Batu Lintang who broke four records as he splashed to eight individual gold medals in the Boys Group 2 (13-14 years old).
Hii was in excellent form as he cracked the 26-year old record of 2:27.30s in the 200m backstroke by clocking a new time of 2:21.79s. The old record was held by Tay Sing Leong in 1991.
His other record times were 33.73s in the 50m breaststroke erasing the old record of 34.87s set by Elias Chua in 2005; 2:21.34s in the 200m individual medley (2:23.84s – Welson Sim in 2012) and 1:04.69s in the 100m (1:06.42s – Welson Sim in 2012).
Hii’s other gold medals were won in the 200m breaststroke, 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 400m freestyle.
Zachary Tan of St Joseph Private School (Secondary) also impressed yesterday with three new records to go with four individual gold medals.
He clocked 2:17.18s in the Boys Group 1 (15-17 years) 200m individual medley, erasing Tan Boon Hua’s record of 2:22.05s set in 1995.
The Sukma swimmer claimed his first gold medal of the mee by winning the 200m breaststroke in 2:36.93s.
He went on to crack the 200m backstroke record of 2:26.02s set by Tay Sing Leong in 1992 by clocking 2:19.11s and setting the new record of 1:02.79s in the 100m backstroke, erasing the old time of 1:07.14s set by Felix Lee in 2001.
The other record of the day was set by Vanessa Liew Girls Group 5 (8 years and below) in the 50m breaststroke. She registered a time of 49.14s to chip 0.57s off the old record of 49.71s set by Angela Chieng in 2006.
Meanwhile, St Joseph Private School (Secondary) collected 348 points to lead the title challenge in the secondary schools section.
In second place were SMK Kuching High with 313 points, followed by Lodge Secondary School in third place with 264 points.
The defending champions and three-time consecutive champions SMK Batu Lintang will have a lot of catching up to do as they occupied the fourth spot with 194 points while SMK Green Road is in fifth place with 108 points.
As for the primary schools section, SJK Chung Hua No. 4 has a slender lead of 8.50 points over defending champions SJK Chung Hua No. 2 when they collected 200.50 points.
Third to fifth places were occupied by Tunku Putra Primary School (92), Lodge Primary School (89) and St Joseph Private School (Primary) who had 66 points.
A minute of silence was observed before the start of the competition as a mark of respect to the late Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem, with a total of 78 events competed yesterday and 72 more events will be contested today.
Amateur Swimming Association of Sarawak president Dato Wee Hong Seng will close the event and give away the trophies.