Tan Jing-E of Singapore in action during the National Schools Championships earlier this year in April. (Photo © Lim Yong Teck/Red Sports)
Brunei, June 7-9, 2013 – Singapore emerged as overall champions in the 37th South-east Asia (SEA) Age Group Swimming Championships with a total haul of 29 gold, 25 silver and 24 bronze medals. This was an improvement on last year’s tally of 16-16-26.
12-year-old Tan Jing-E was one of the standout performers of the meet. She bagged seven wins in as many individual events, and took down three championship records and four personal bests en route to a dominant overall performance.
Swimming in the Girls’ 13 and under category, the Methodist Girls’ School student finished first in the 50, 100 and 200 metres backstroke and butterfly events, as well as the 400m individual medley. Apart from the 50m backstroke where she won by 22 hundredths of a second, Jing-E was a class apart in the other six races, winning by an average of 3.57 seconds.
Darren Chua picked up five gold and three silver medals in the eight Boys’ 13 and under individual races he swam in. The Secondary One Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) student also bettered three championship records in the 200m IM, 100m and 200m freestyle. Darren was also the only swimmer in the Singapore contingent to swim in all three relay races (4x100m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle, 4x100m medley).
Darren went under two minutes in the 200m freestyle for the first time, clocking 1 minute 59.44 seconds to break Sng Ju Wei’s mark of 2:00.40, which had stood for 20 years. It was the joint-second oldest mark of the championships, behind a pair of records set in 1992 by another Singaporean, Joscelin Yeo.
Darren’s ACS(I) schoolmate Francis Fong broke the only national age-group mark in the three-day meet. He clocked 1:00.99 in the lead-off 100m backstroke leg of the 4x100m medley relay to better his own 1:01.50 mark, which he set twice at April’s National Inter-School Championships. Francis also swept the gold medals in the Boys’ 13 and under 50, 100 and 200m backstroke, breaking the championship records in the first two events and bettering his personal best in the third.
Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Anh Vien had a stellar outing at the meet. The 17-year-old swam in a whopping 13 events – only missing out on the three breaststroke events for a full schedule – and took home 11 gold and two silver medals. She also broke seven championship records.
Complete Results
37th South-east Asia Age Group Swimming Championships
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