KUCHING, Feb 6: The success of Power Aquatics Swimming Club (PASC) swimmers who partnered with the Limbang Amateur Swimming Association (Lasa) at the recently concluded 45th Sarawak Age Group Swimming Championship 2018 in Miri was credited to the Sarawak Sports Council (SSC) for allowing the club to have a good facility for its swimmers to train at the Pandelela Rinong Aquatic Centre.
In a press statement today, PASC secretary Julie Tan said it was a pleasant surprise to emerged as part of the overall champion team.
She expressed the club’s gratitude to SSC and the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture for being so gracious to allow the club’s swimmers to conduct their training at part of the swimming facility at the Pandelela Rinong Aquatic Centre.
“The opportunity to have access to proper professional coaching and good facilities are two very important factors for the development of any athlete. This certainly applies to swimming as well. We would like to thank the SSC and the Ministry for allowing us to use the swimming pool facility.
“This will give us motivation and spur us further forward and dare to have bigger dreams,” Tan said, adding that a suitable place to train their swimmers was important because there was great potential in many of them.
She said the club fielded 18 swimmers to join Lasa’s team (36 swimmers) for the SAG 2018 championship and the combination has helped LASA to win 113 medals comprising 42 gold, 35 silver, and 36 bronze medals.
She said although PASC fielded a small group of swimmers but they managed to contribute 62 medals comprising 55 medals in individual events and seven medals in relay events which amounted to 70 per cent of the joint team’s success. The majority of their swimmers competed in the Group D and Group E categories.
Tan said she was certain that the hidden potential in the club’s swimmers would make Sarawak or even Malaysia very proud one day in the future and “all that we have to do now is to give them every support we can to let them have the opportunity to cultivate their talent and prowess in aquatic sports.”
With the recent swimmers’ result, she said they hoped the council and the state government could continue to support the club facility-wise because they believed that not only swimming associations but swimming clubs could also produce good swimmers.
According to Tan, not only did the young swimmers turn in medal-winning performances, but two of them, namely Dylan Leong and Janice Tan, also set five new records out of the total of six new records created during the recent championship. Both Leong and Janice also won the best boy and best girl achievements in the Boy Group E (eight-years-old and below) and Girl Group E respectively.
Leong won five gold medals in individual events, and two gold medals in relay events, while Janice won nine gold medals in individual events.
Another swimmer who won best girl achievement was Bibienne Ong in the Group D (nine to 10-years-old) category, who won five gold, one silver, and four Bronze medals in individual events, and two gold medals in relay events.
Nathan Tan in the Boy Group C (11 to 12-years-old) category has qualified for the National Age Group swimming championship which will be held at the National Aquatics Centre in Bukit Jalil in March.
He won three gold medals and one bronze medal for individual events, and two bronze medals in relay events.
The other medalists were Casper Tan (2 gold medals including one from relay, 2 silvers, 3 bronzes), Cayden Mineve Chin (1 bronze medal individual events, and 1 gold medal in relay), Ong Chuan Yen (3 silver, 2 bronze, and 2 gold medals in relay), Dalysha Teo (1 gold medal, 1 bronze medal), Darren Leong (1 bronze medal), Julius Abbas (2 bronze medals in relay), Sara Tham (2 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze medals in individual events, and 2 gold medals in relay), and Ong Zong Lian (2 silver and 1 bronze in individual events, and 1 gold in relay). — DayakDaily
