Kevin Yeap Soon Choy and Heidi Gan celebrate with their gold medals at the Putrajaya Water Sports Complex. Bernama Photo
PUTRAJAYA: After a challenging six laps, two national swimmers Kevin Yeap Soon Choy and Heidi Gan have bagged two gold medals for Men and Women 10km Open Water swimming in the 29th Kuala Lumpur SEA Games (KL2017).
Yeap who has been training for the past one year completed the race with a time of 2:03:18.
“This will be my last race. I want to retire after this. I thank my family, my coach and everyone who supported me,” he said.
Planning to be a swimming coach after this, Kevin said that it was a tough race and it was an advantage for him as he knew the place well and the weather is good.
“I gave the best that I can even though I was tired. I can feel my competitors were right behind me all the time. I did not dare to look back,” he said.
As for Heidi who is still feeling under the weather since last week but managed to leave a five minute gap from silver medallist, Benjaporn Sruphanomthorn from Thailand with a time of 2:16:27 had expressed her happiness that she could contribute a gold medal for the country.
“I really want to win and dominate the race. I am glad I managed to do so,” she said.
The Australian born Olympic swimmer also thanked her family who came all the way to see her compete and her coach for pushing her to her best ability.
“This proves that if you work hard, you can do it,” said the swimmer who had started swimming since she was 15.
For the men’s 10 kilometre, the silver medal was won by Peerapat Lertsathapornsuk of Thailand with a time of 2:05:41 and bronze by Aflah Fadlan Prawira of Indonesia who clocked 2:08:40.
As for the women’s category, the bronze medal was won by Chantel Liew Li-Shan from Singapore with a time of 2:21:30. – Bernama