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| Hii Puong Wei |
KUCHING: This year’s Sarawak Age Group best team Kota Samarahan Amateur Swimming Association (Kotas) has yet another reason to celebrate.
At the recently concluded MSSM Swimming Championship at Darul Ehsan Aquatic Centre, Shah Alam, Kotas swimmers played an integral role in ensuring the success of the Sarawak team clinching second place behind reigning champions and host, Selangor.
Sarawak brought home 24 gold medals with Kotas swimmers contributing an impressive 18 gold medals. Most notable is the achievement of 12-year old Hii Puong Wei who won 10 individual gold medals, and a further two gold medals in relays.
Having undergone intensive training under coaches Li Guo Bin and Gary Lau, the SJK Chung Hwa Batu 4 1/2 student did the state and Kotas proud by winning all 12 events he entered.
Hii was also named the best boy swimmer for the Boys U12 category after scoring a massive 120 points.
Another outstanding swimmer at the meet was Kotas’ Tan Tyng who won the Best Girls U15 swimmer award with her impressive haul of six gold and two silver medals.
Other contributors from the Kotas team include Anson Go (one gold, three silvers, one bronze), Hii Puong Hou (one gold, one silver, one bronze) and Ayrton Lim (one silver and one bronze).
These swimmers have now set the goal of recording personal best times at the invitational National Age Group competition to be held at the National Aquatic Centre in Bukit Jalil from April 24-26..
For Tan Tyng, Anson and Puong Hou, the prospect of donning national colours was an added impetus as the trio have also been shortlisted to represent Malaysia for the Asean Schools swimming competition due to be held in Brunei Darussalam in November this year.
According to Kotas president Yii Chee Sing, the association was very pleased with the impressive performance of its swimmers and their contribution to the Sarawak team.
“The development programme for this current batch of swimmers began four years ago and we are happy that the resources invested are now bearing fruit.”
Yii noted that Kotas swimmers systematically go through four stages of development under the tutelage of specialised coaches.
The core group of swimmers trains six to 13 sessions per week and are provided with weekly yoga sessions, mental preparation, motivation and nutrition input for competitions.
“Such a development programme requires continued financial support from various bodies ranging from the state and our corporate sponsors,” he said.
Yii was appreciative of the strong and continued support from MSNS acting director Lucas Kallang as well as the State Education Department.
He also attributed the current success of Kotas swimmers to the generous support of the team’s corporate sponsors – Cahya Mata Sarawak, Hock Seng Lee, Sarawak Energy, KKB Engineering, Timberland Properties, Naim Holdings, Conelli and Madwave.
Yii hopes that such strong partnership between the team and its corporate partners can be perpetuated for the development of the sport among youths in Kota Samarahan and Kuching.
Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2015/03/21/kotas-swimmers-shine-at-mssm-championship/#ixzz3WsdrMkbT
