Golden Bling For Ching

Lim Ching Hwang’s gold medal win is a first for Malaysia in swimming at the Asian Youth Games.

LIM CHING HWANG has established himself as a top junior freestyle swimmer in the continent after winning the boys’ 200m event in style at the 2nd Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, this evening.

To make the victory sweeter, it was Malaysia’s first ever gold medal from swimming at the Games.

The 17-year-old clocked a time of 1:50.81s – a little short of his personal best of 1:50.42s - to take the gold ahead of Quah Zheng Wen of Singapore (1:52.19s) and Thailand’s Kittiya Tanakrit (1:52.94s).

Ching Hwang has obviously treated the AYG very seriously having declared the Games as a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ before it started.

He never looked like losing from the moment he dived into the pool, immediately surging to the front leaving his rivals behind in the four-lap race.

“I was feeling very down after failing to impress at the recent World Championships,” he said.

“So I was determined to go under 1:50 here in Nanjing and see where it took me, my thought was a medal regardless of the colour.

“But it turned out to be a gold medal! I really couldn’t be happier. Now I’ll aim to make it double by capturing also the 100m freestyle on Thursday.”

The Singapore-based athlete then returned to pool and led the 4X100m freestyle relay quartet comprising also Alwyn Tan, Welson Sim and Wong Fu Kang to a bronze medal finish.

They posted 3:29.81s to finish behind South Korea (3:28.66s) and Singapore (3:29.63s).

Our swimmers were involved in other two finals today where Fu Kang narrowly missed out on third place in the boys 50m breaststroke while Phee Jing En finished sixth in the girls’ 50m breaststroke after clocking 33.49s.

Fu Kang reached the finishing line in 29.78s behind South Korea’s Kim Jaeyoun (28.97s), Cai Bing-Rong of China (29.24s) and Chao Man Hou of Hong Kong (29.52s).

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