Selangor Swimmer Nadia Shares The Limelight With Johor’s Fu Kang

SARAWAK emerged big winners – capturing five out of the eight swimming golds at stake in Sukma – but the day belonged to debutants Nadia Adrianna Redza of Selangor and Johor’s Wong Fu Kang.

Interestingly, both are 13 and excelled in the 200m breaststroke last night.

Nadia, who is coached by former Asian champion Elvin Chia, stole the show by bursting to victory in the women’s 200m breaststroke final.

Proud day: Nadia Adrianna Redza celebrates her 200m breaststroke win with her coach Elvin Chia. 

She was already leading by the time she made the last turn and finished the race in 2:39.28 as her proud coach watched from the stands.

Federal Territories’ Mak Ai Sin posted 2:44.49 for the silver, ahead of Selangor’s Phee Jinq En (2:50.30).

A delighted Nadia, who has been training with Elvin for the last three years, was relieved to be able to hold her nerves well.

“This is the biggest stage I’ve performed on and it feels intimidating as I’m so young,” said Nadia, who is 1.52m tall and admires Olympic medallist Re­­becca Soni of the United States.

The Kuala Lumpur International School student, who also has two bronze medals from the Games, intends to focus on the breaststroke and individual medley.

Meanwhile, Elvin can sense that it won’t be long before his Sukma 200m breaststroke record of 2:19.27, which he set at the same pool back in 1996, is erased.

And it’s likely to be Fu Kang, whose winning time in the men’s 200m breaststroke was just three seconds behind Elvin’s benchmark.

The lanky Fu Kang, who is 1.79m tall, clocked 2:22.77 to complete a double in the breaststroke races.

Fu Kang won the 100m breaststroke on Sunday but settled for silver in the 50m distance on Tuesday.

“I never expected this as it’s only my first Sukma appearance. I started swimming when I was seven and I like the breaststroke,” said Fu Kang, who looks up to American Michael Phelps.

Angela Chieng and Hii Siew Siew captured their second individual gold in the women’s 400m freestyle and 100m butterfly respectively.

Vernon Lee wiped out Kevin Yeap’s Games record of 4:02.11 in the 400m freestyle by returning 3:58.65.

Vernon and Angela returned to the pool later to help Sarawak sweep the 4x200m freestyle relay titles in record times.

The Sarawak men’s quartet clocked 7:50.29 to erase the previous mark of 7:54.20 held by FT while their women counterparts stopped the clock at 8:40.85 to better the old record of 8:41.04, also held by FT.