KUALA LUMPUR - It’s still too early to label young swimmer Khiew Hoe Yean as a star in the making, but he is definitely the one to look out for in the years to come.
That was a gist of Malaysia Swimming (MAS) secretary-general Mae Chen’s assessment on the Kuala Lumpur born-swimmer who stole the limelight at the just concluded 63rd Malaysia Open, held in the National Aquatic Centre, Bukit Jalil, over weekend.
Hoe Yean became the talk of the town among the swimming fraternity after he splashed his way to break two new national records, namely in 200 metres (m) backstroke and 800m freestyle event, in which he swam alone, in the three day-meet which kicked off on Friday.
Chen hailed Hoe Yean’s performance as ‘exceptionally’ and said that there’ll be a lot more to come from the 19-year-old swimmer.
“Hoe Yean broke two national records, which was amazing…whether he’s a star in the making or not we have to see,” she told Bernama when contacted today.
Last Saturday, Hoe Yean broke the 23-year-old 200m backstroke national record by clocking 2:00.80s to erase former national star Alex Lim Keng Liat’s previous mark of 2:00.94s and that was enough for him to better the Olympic Selection Time (OST) of 2:01.03s.
Then, he continued his splendid display by setting another national record in 800m freestyle after clocking in 8:06.00s to erase Olympian Welson Sim’s record of 8:09.77s set at the Victorian Open swimming championships in February 2019.
Not only that, the Kuala Lumpur swimmer’s time also cracked the 800m freestyle meet record of 8:12.11s set by Srihari Nataraj of India in 2019 and dipped below the OST of 8:08.54s, reaching very close to the Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT) of 7:54.31s.
The teenager also dipped below the OST in two other events, whereby he surpassed 1:50.23s set in the men’s 200m freestyle, winning the event in 1:49.38s to beat record holder Welson (1:50.64s) and Low Zheng Yong (1:56.28s) into second and third places respectively, as well as beating another OST mark of 3:53.58s, when he blew away Olympian Welson Sim to win the men’s 400m freestyle, clocking 3:51.56s.
Only swimmers who meet the OQT in their respective events by June 27 are guaranteed slots at the Tokyo Olympics, which will be held from July 23-Aug 8.
Swimmers can also qualify under the OST based on universal participation, meaning a nation with no Olympic qualifier will be allowed to enter up to one male and one female swimmer for the Tokyo Games.
Meanwhile, Chen was glad to see the event, dubbed as the last chance for Malaysian swimmers to qualify for Tokyo, went on smoothly and thanked the Youth and Sports Ministry as well as National Sports Council which managed to get the green light from the government to organise the event.
“This event was important to us because the last time we had an event was 14 months ago...so there was no real competitive swimming other than just the quarantine training they were doing all along in the National Aquatic Centre,” she added.
Meanwhile, national swimming chief coach, Chris Martin, said Hoe Yean’s determination in training paid off although he had to train under an extremely difficult condition due to the pandemic situation in the country, by breaking two national records in Malaysia Open.
The American with over 30 years of training experience was also grateful to see that his swimmers made a good effort of trying to establish something, even though they haven’t had any competitive experience for quite some time.
“My feeling was that they did their best...few people had really good performances and I thought they showed some good courage in the pool,” he said. - Bernama, 15 June, 2021
