KOTA KINABALU: Sabah's Ninth Malaysia Games (Sukma 2002) swimmers returned home with three gold medals, five silver medals and six bronze medals from the just concluded Malaysia Open Swimming Championship that ended at the Kuala Lumpur Swimming Complex in Cheras over the weekend.

The medal haul saw Sabah finish fifth overall behind champions China, Thailand, the Philippines and Sarawak.
Upcoming swimmers Claudia Leow and Chua Lai Kwan contributed the gold medals for Sabah.

Claudia won the gold in the women's 400m individual medley and 50m breaststroke, while Lai Kwan bagged the gold medal in the 50m backstroke. Claudia also won two silver medals - 200m backstroke and breaststroke.

The other silver medallists are Marellyn Liew (400m individual medley), Chua Lai Kwan (100m backstroke) and the men's 4x100m freestyle quartet.

The bronze medal winners are Claudia (100m breaststroke), Leung Chu Lin (50m breaststroke), Lai Kwan (200m backstroke), Marellyn Liew (200m butterfly), Jeremy Er (50m butterfly) and Jimmy Wong in the men's 400m individual medley.

The Sabah Amateur Swimming Association (Sasa) president Ronny Champ is satisfied with the overall performance of the swimmers.

He said: "It was an interesting outing because all the Malaysian swimmers were up against swimmers from a few countries such us China, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. This championship is in fact part of our training schedule for our swimmers especially in obtaining experience in the skills of competition and also to break any fear and nervousness in competition among our athletes. In this respect, we have achieved satisfying results. Most of the swimmers have either maintained or improved their personal results in the events they are participating in. At the same time, in this competition we have also narrowed down and finalised the respective events that the respective swimmers or individuals will be participating in during Sukma."

Ronny said for the remaining two months, these swimmers or trainees would concentrate fully and intensively in targeting their goals.

"At the same time we have also realised generally that in this competition many states have the same attitude as we are not fully exposing ourselves. That's why the overall champions was China followed by Thailand and the Philippines, while Sarawak in fourth and then us. Sarawak won four gold medals, five silver medals and 11 bronze medals. "Basically as far as Malaysia is concerned, Sarawak was top followed by Sabah," he added.

Ronny also said that during the last two months, the swimmers have competed in three major championships namely the National Age Group, National School Sports Council and this Malaysia Open.

"Sasa has also compiled the best times achieved by swimmers in the past one-and-a-half years and have also identified our main competitors. So now that we are back the swimmers will undergo solid training. Basically our athletes are taking leave from school from now on to fully concentrate on training," Ronny pointed out.