Swimmers Highly Motivated To Shine In National Age-Group Meet

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian swimmers will not be short of motivation to make an impact in the national age-group championships at the National Aquatic Centre in Bukit Jalil this weekend.

This year’s three-day meet starting on Friday has been accepted as an Olympic qualifier for South East Asia and the organisers, the Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia (Asum), are opening the event to foreign swimmers for the first time.

Hong Kong, India and Guam have confirmed their participation while the Philippines have also stated their interest to compete.



The national swimmers bagged 11-3-3 in their first outing for the year at the Singapore age-group championship last month with Kevin Yeap and Christina Loh meeting Olympic qualifying standards in the men’s 1500m freestyle and women’s 100m breaststroke disciplines respectively.

Christina Loh: Has met the Olympic qualifying standard in the women’s 100m breaststroke.

Freestyler Khoo Cai Lin and breaststroker Siow Yi Ting have also beaten the Olympic invitational time in their respective events but they are not guaranteed their places.

A swimmer reaching Olympic invitation time standard is eligible for entry depending on the rankings where they will need to better their times before the deadline passes in June and a country can only have one representative in each event.

Swimmers will be competing for honours in five categories (Open, 15-17, 13-14, 11-12 and 10 and-under) at the national age-group meet.

“The foreign swimmers are going to make the event more exciting. Our national swimmers are also better conditioned and I expect them to make a bigger impression,” said Asum secretary Edwin Chong yesterday.

“Hong Kong wanted to send 80 swimmers but we could only accommodate 50 of them while Guam have confirmed three swimmers.”

On whether the national swimmers would be able to better their times for Olympic qualification, Edwin is hopeful they will.

“Our swimmers are feeling confident after the Singapore meet. They were not at peak condition then but they managed to improve their times and win some titles.

“We have a few Olympic qualifying competitions left before the June deadline and by then, I believe, at least three more swimmers should qualify for the Games,” Edwin added.

The Malaysian Open followed by the inaugural South East Asian Championships, both taking place next month, and the Singapore Open in June are the other remaining Olympic qualifying meets.