Thais monopolize SEA swimming meet

JAKARTA (JP): Thai swimmers monopolized the 24th Southeast Asia inter-club age group swimming championship by winning 23 golds yesterday on the last day of the three-day competition.

Singaporean swimmers trailed by winning 14 golds from the 40 events contested yesterday. Host Indonesia won only two golds, four silvers and 10 bronzes.

Five meet records were broken yesterday, four by Thai swimmers and one by a Singaporean.

Suriya Suksuprak of the Boonward Brewery Bangkok club produced a record of 0:32.25 in the 50 meters butterfly boys aged 10 and under, 0.02 seconds faster than the previous record by Aung Soe Cun of the MST club in 1996.

Teammate Nipaporn Tangtorrit also clocked a record of 0:32.28 in the 50m butterfly girls aged 10 and under. The previous record was set in 0:33.26 by Chutima Wongthien of the Satit Prasarnmit Bangkok club in 1995.

Another Boonward swimmer, Chgrkaew Choompol, produced a record of 0:33.19 in the 50m backstroke girls 11 to 12 years, only 0.01 of a second faster than the record set by Kamolchanok Khantidilokvongsa in 1966.

Thamarog Assadamongkol of Royal Turf Bangkok clocked 0:35.75 to set a record. The old record was produced by Piyawat Kraithamjitkul of the Khemasiri Bangkok in 0:35.86.

Gary Tan of the Christian college Singapore broke the 0:29.10 record, by Gary Tan Lee Yu of the same club in 1996, in 0:29.01.

Indonesian Hans Yosaputra of Aquarius Indonesia set a record of 0:29.72 in the 50m butterfly boys 11 to 12 years. The old record was set by Jonathan Chua of SSC in 1994.

Teammate Ira Kurniawan clocked a record of 0:29.71 in the 50m butterfly girls. Joscelin Yeo of the People's Association Youth of Singapore, who is his country's best swimmer, matched the record of 0:28.90 which was set in 1994.

More than 100 swimmers from 27 clubs from seven countries competed in the championship.

The Bangkok Christian College will stage the championship next year. (yan)