Most numbers of KL swimmers qualified to SEA Games from 64th Malaysia Open Swimming Championships 2022

The most prestigious swim meet in the country, the Malaysia Open Swimming, has finally come to an end last weekend after 2 years missing its bliss because of the current pandemic situation. Last year, the meet was only opened to those in the national squad in a quarantine-based training. 

The 64th Malaysia Open Swimming Championship held from 3rd March 2022 to 6th March 2022 at National Aquatic Centre, KL Sport City, Bukit Jalil was sanctioned by FINA as the qualifying meet to 31st South East Asian Games 2022 in Vietnam and 19th FINA World Championships 2022 in Budapest. Despite the absence of participation from foreign swimmers, the four days meet registered a total number of 218 local swimmers who represented their respective states.

24 female and 37 male enthusiastic WPKL swimmers took part in the meet. Apart from several outstanding results achieved by WPKL swimmers particularly from our swimmers who train with the national team, our young swimmers did pretty well too. 

All eyes were on Khiew Hoe Yean or Steve,  waiting to witness him qualify into SEA Games and World Champ and to break some records, even though he restricted himself to only individual 4 events, as advised by his coach Chris Martin to concentrate on qualifying to the major games.

Steve made a clean sweep in his events earning 6 gold for WPKL team, including the relays. He clocked 3:50:77 for his 400m freestyle on day one to beat the A-SEA Games and B-World Champ qualifying time. 

Steve Khiew was ahead of his competitors in all freestyle events

On the following days, Steve was unstoppable winning another 3 individual gold medals for his 100m freestyle (new PB of  50:35), 200m freestyle (new PB of 1:48:77) and 1500m freestyle (new PB of 15:30:90). Not only he broke the 1500m freestyle meet record but he also qualified for B-SEA Games and B-World Champ time for all of the events.

Steve Khiew proved to be the vital anchor swimmers in WPKL relay team to win the 4x100m Medley relay with his teammates Khiew Tze Yean, Jayden Tan and Yap Min Shun. On day three, he led team WPKL 4x100m freestyle relay team together with Yap Min Shun, Khiew Tze Yean and Gabriel Francis McCartan to win another gold for WPKL.

Jayden Tan another rising star for WPKL team showed that he is good in all strokes by improving his 400m IM time to 4:29:16 making a cut for B-SEA Games. He also contributed 1 silver and 1 bronze for WPKL as he came second behind Steve Khiew in 1500m freestyle and third place in 400m freestyle event.

Jayden Tan

Meanwhile, Sebastian Soon, who has just returned to training recently swam some decent times to win 2 bronze in 200IM & 400 IM events. 

Sebastian Soon

To complete the 10 gold medal haul for WPKL team, Chong, Xin Lin won 3 gold in her 50m backstroke, 200m backstroke and 100m backstroke. Her new PB of 1:05:57 for 100m backstroke was just a half of second shy of the B-SEA Games qualifying time, an awesome time for a 14 year old girl.  

WPKL team positioned itself second with an impressive 30 medals comprising of 10 gold, 9 silver and 11 bronze.

The 64th Malaysia Open Swimming Championships results showed WPKL swimmers have a great potential to gear up and achieve more outstanding results for WPKL team in the upcoming SUKMA and MIAG meets, especially the younger athletes. Our continuous support in the state development program will surely help these swimmers emerge as our future hope in swimming as our main objective is to produce as many talents as possible who can compete at the high level competitions.

We also congratulate the 4 KL swimmers who have made the cut to SEA Games Aquatic Squad, namely, Steve Khiew, Jayden Tan, Sebastian Soon and Bryan Leong.

Great job guys and well done to all WPKL swimmers!               

 

Photo Credit : Mr Clement Chew

The Star : Chance for Hoe Yean to make big splash at SEA Games

Medal prospects: Khiew Hoe Yean, Phee Jing En (inset, left) and Welson Sim (inset) are going for the Vietnam SEA Games under Category A.

 
PETALING JAYA: After dominating the pool in his backyard, it is time for promising swimmer Khiew Hoe Yean to rise to the challenge at the Vietnam SEA Games.

The 19-year-old is one of only three swimmers who will head to the SEA Games under Category A.

The other two are former Games champion Welson Sim and defending women’s breaststroke winner Phee Jinq En.

The 19-year-old Hoe Yean has come to the fore in the last two years after putting the more accomplished two-time Olympian Welson in the shade.

The Kuala Lumpur-born swimmer now holds three national records – the 800m freestyle, 200m backstroke and the 400m individual medley.

The 200m backstroke record was the most impressive as he clocked 2:00.08 to beat Alex Lim Keng Liat’s previous record of 2:00.94 that was posted when he won silver in the Asian Games in 1998.

Hoe Yean has also proven to be the new ace in freestyle, sweeping four gold medals – 100m, 200m, 400m and 1,500m – at the Malaysian Open last week.

He is certainly the face of Malaysian swimming at the Games as he leads a total of 14 swimmers for the biennial regional meet.

But it will certainly be a tough challenge for Hoe Yean as Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand all have competent swimmers to challenge for honours.

The other 11 swimmers selected by Malaysian Swimming (MS) – Jayden Tan, Job Tan, Ananda Lim, Hii Puong Wei, Arvin Shaun Singh Chalal, Ng Jing Fu, Sebastian Soon, Lau Zheng Yong, Bryan Leong (men), Alicia Li Ann Soosai and Goh Chia Tong will be competing under Category B.

Under this category, the association will fund their athletes’ expenses but will be reimbursed if the athletes win a medal.

“We really want to do better than what we achieved at the 2019 Games,” said MS secretary Mae Chen.

In the Philippines, Malaysia finished with two gold medals courtesy of Jinq En and will surely be hoping to improve on their 2-2-3 haul from 2019.

The Star : Hoe Yean swims closer to elusive record

 

Pumped up: Kuala Lumpur’s Khiew Hoe Yean reacts after winning the 1,500m event at the National Aquatic Centre in Bukit Jalil. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star

PETALING JAYA: Swimmer Khiew Hoe Yean is inching closer to break one of the long-standing national records that has eluded many – the men’s 1,500m freestyle.

The 20-year-old showed that he can also excel in long distance event when he won the race with a time of 15:30.90 in the Malaysian Open at the National Aquatic Centre in Bukit Jalil yesterday.

His Kuala Lumpur teammate Jayden Tan, 17, finished second in 15:56.87 while Melaka’s Low Zheng Yong was third with 16:02.02.

The 1,500m freestyle is the oldest national record held by Jeffrey Ong since 1991.

The former SEA Games multiple gold medallist clocked 15:23.61 when he took silver in the World Games in Sheffield, England and it has stood unchallenged over the years.

Hoe Yean’s performance was nothing short of impressive considering that he had to race two sessions (preliminary and final) in the middle distance races over the last three days.

His performance also saw him beating the World Aquatics Championships B qualifying time of 15:36.30.

The world meet will be held in Budapest, Hungary in July and Hoe Yean is pleased to sign off with a creditable performance on the last day.

“It’s nice to clock 15:30. It is more of a mental challenge for myself,” said Hoe Yean, who has completed a sweep of all the freestyle individual events.

Earlier, he had won the 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle events ahead of former SEA Games champion Welson Sim.

Welson, who pulled out of the national team programme last month, did not race in the 1,500m freestyle.

“I did think about this record but it’s not a main focus. I prefer the middle distance events but I’m ready if my coach (Chris Martin) puts me up for it,” he added.

National swimmer Phee Jinq En also claimed her third individual gold when she won the women’s 50m breaststroke in 32.77. She had won the 100m and 200m distances earlier.