Asas: Eligible swimmers welcomed to compete at SAG

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Kong (second left) with (from right) Kasa 2010 president Frankie Lau, advisor Zain Abdullah and deputy president Kelvin Yeo cum SAG organising chairman.

KUCHING: The Amateur Swimming Association of Sarawak (Asas) has never sought to block any swimmer from taking part in the 46th Sarawak Age Group (SAG) Swimming Championship that commence today and end on Sunday at the Pandelela Rinong Aquatic Centre, Petra Jaya.

Asas secretary Anthony Kong Sin Huat said in fact the state body encouraged all eligible swimmers from the respective divisional affiliates to join the annual age group swimming meet.

“The amendment to the rules and regulations was brought up by an affiliate in the Asas exco meeting on Nov 30, after reflecting what happened in last year’s meet in Miri,” he told reporters while clarifying the matter yesterday after a team managers meeting at the Pandelela Rinong Aquatic Centre.

“To prevent the same problem from happening again, an unanimous decision was reached by all 10 exco members to enhance the rules and regulations which was in accordance to Asas Constitution,” he added.

Kong said according to the constitution, only affiliates are eligible to participate in the SAG and any club or academy must be attached to divisional affiliates if they want to compete in the meet.

He said Power Aquatic Swimming Club (PASC) had recently alleged that their so called 120 swimmers including the club swimmers, Serian Amateur Swimming Association (Serians) and Sarawak State Sports Council (MSNS) elite swimmers were prevented from participating in the meet by Asas.

Serians then came up with a press statement days later to back PASC’s allegation.

“On Tuesday, all parties concerned had a dialogue with the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah who advised and instructed the affected swimmers to go back to their respective affiliate and in this case, the swimmers will join and swim under Kota Samaharan Amateur Swimming Association (Kotas) banner, with compliance to conditions set by Kotas to be eligible.

“In this case, the swimmers must join as junior members and pay RM100 annual membership fee each and follow Kotas rules and regulations,” added Kong.

He said by 6pm on Wednesday, PASC had not submitted their swimmers name list to Kotas and had argued with the latter over the membership fee.

“Initially, PASC informed Kotas that they did not agree with the conditions but made an about turn later.

“I even called up Datuk Abdul Karim at 6.14pm and proposed that Asas help to make the advance payment of the membership fee to Kotas and get the reimbursement from PASC later. The minister was even in favour of this move.

“The organising committee only received the list of 101 swimmers at 10pm yesterday (Wednesday). Fortunately, they are able to come up with the meet programme just in time as they had Plan B to fall back on,” he said.

“Some members of PASC were left in the dark on the talk between the club and Kotas because the top officials in PASC had kept the vital information to themselves and not notify the members.

“Now, who are the ones trying to block the swimmers from participating in this meet,” said Kong, who added that PASC and Serians had been badmouthing them in the newspapers and social media.

Meanwhile, Kotas become the biggest team with 132 swimmers, followed by Kuching Amateur Swimming Association (Kasa) 2010 with 80 swimmers, 50 from Miri Amateur Swimming Association (Masa), 29 from Sibu Amateur Swimming Association (Sasa) and 28 from Bintulu Amateur Swimming Association (Basa).