Singapore's Yeo spashes records with two golds

Singapore's Yeo spashes records with two golds

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (Agencies): Thailand, emerging as a regional swimming power, shattered three Southeast Asian (SEA) Games records Sunday as it captured four of the opening night's gold medals.

But it was Singapore swimming star Joscelin Yeo who stole the show by grabbing two golds in record time, setting the pace for her quest for nine golds in the 20th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games here.

Yeo, 20, shattered her own records in the 100-meter freestyle and 200m individual medley events, in which she led all the way.

"I am very pleased with my performance, it's a good beginning," said the University of California biology student who has just recovered from an elbow injury sustained during weight- training.

Yeo clocked 56.0 seconds in the 100m freestyle, breaking her 57.27 seconds in the 1993 games. She finished nearly two seconds ahead of silver medalist Pilin Tachakittiran of Thailand.

Slightly more than an hour later, Yeo finished the 200m individual medley in two minutes 17.17 seconds, shattering her earlier mark of 2:17.48.

Yeo has grabbed 19 gold medals while anchoring her country's challenge in the Southeast Asian Games for the past eight years.

At this year's games, she has also entered in the 50m, 200m and 400m free events, 100m and 200m breaststroke, 100m butterfly and 400m individual medley events.

She will also participate in two other relay events - 4x100 free and 4x100m medley.

"She has passed the first stage of the competition and I hope she maintains her strength," said her U.S. coach Michael Walker.

But Yeo's strength was not enough to steer her nation to victory in the 4X200m relay free style. They were edged out by Thailand, which won in a record breaking time of 8:25.51 for the gold.

"Joscelin should have gone faster," Singapore swimming coach David Lim said.

Lim, who expressed disappointment at Singapore's performance, added that "we're still very young."

In the men's relay, Singapore's team was disqualified after its anchor swimmer took off too early.

Thailand won in 7:38.89, about two seconds faster than Malaysia and ahead of its games record of 7:39.39.

Thailand's Ratapong Sirisanont, two-time gold medalist in the last SEA Games, maintained his supremacy in the 400m individual medley event by winning it in a record time of 4min 25.16secs. He beat Indonesia's hopeful Albert Sutanto by three hundredths of a second.

Albert said afterwards he was not disappointed with his performance, which bested his own national record of 4:32.37.

Chonlathorn Vorathamrong won the women's 200m backstroke to give Thailand another gold in 2:20.05, 1.52 seconds ahead of the Philippines' Lizza Danila.

In the men's 200m backstroke event, Malaysia's Lim Keng Liat staved off a flu and won the gold in 2:2.09.

"I was really feeling sick and I didn't want to take any medicine because I may be pulled up for doping," said the record- shattering Asian Games gold medalist in the 100m backstroke event.

Apart from Albert's silver, Indonesia managed four bronzes through Elsa Manora Nasution in the women's 200m breaststroke, women's 4x200m freestyle relay and men's 4x200m freestyle relay teams. Earlier in the day, Indah Eka Purnama won a bronze from the pool after finishing third in the 3m springboard of diving event.

But Indonesia could hope for golds on Monday through freestyle specialist Richard Sam Bera and his 4x100m freestyle relay team.