Home - Sports - Swimming Inter-club meet 2013 goes international by Ting Tieng Hee, reporters@theborneopost. Posted on August 8, 2013, Thursday KUCHING: For the first time in its history, the Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Wong Soon Kai Inter-Club Swimming Championships will have participants from outside Sarawak. The organisers, Kuching Amateur Swimming Association (Kasa) 2010, are expecting between 200 to 250 swimmers to take part in the two-day meet to be held at the Pusat Kecemerlangan Akuatic at Youth and Sports Complex from Nov 30 to Dec 1. Kasa 2010 advisor Anthony Kong said yesterday that the move is intended to make the event more competitive for local swimmers. Invitations have been sent out to about 30 swimming clubs in Beijing (China), Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Labuan, Sabah and from Peninsular Malaysia. “It will be interesting to see how our local swimmers fare against their counterparts from other clubs in Malaysia and overseas,” he added. He felt that opening up the championship would also help to enhance ties between local clubs with other clubs. “Kasa 2010 sent some swimmers to compete at the 1st Borneo Aquatic Games in Kota Kinabalu last month and the host Sea Dragon Swimming Club and a few other clubs competing at the championship would love to come to Kuching and swim here. “We are also prepared for the challenge trophy to go out of the state if any outside team wins the championship. In the past, the challenge trophy will go to any of the clubs or associations within the state,” he said. A new age-group for swimmers aged 8 and under (Group 5) has been added to the exisiting four age-groups namely Group 1 (15-17 yrs), Group 2 (13-14 yrs), Group 3 (11-12 yrs) and Group 4 (9-10 yrs). Kasa 2010 also plan to organise a two-day workshop immediately after the competition for both swimmers and coaches to share their ideas, experience and knowledge, and a city tour for outside teams. “However, this will depend on the number of participants for the championship and I am quite keen to get the best swimmer that Malaysia has ever produced – Lim Keng Liat from Sabah – to be a speaker at the workshop,” said Kong. As this is a big event, Kong said Kasa 2010 are also sourcing for sponsorship from generous private companies and individuals. “We will be getting some technical help from outside the state and many of our members have volunteered to assist in running the championship too,” he said. Kong said the patron of the event, Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Wong Soon Kai, will be invited to grace the opening ceremony in recognition for his tremendous contribution to swimming in Sarawak. Wong was the first president of Amateur Swimming Association of Sarawak (Asas). Kong also thanked Asas for entrusting Kasa 2010 to hosting this year’s championships. “Hopefully, our technical people can learn a lot from organising such a big event and that experience and knowledge will be useful when Sarawak host Sukma 2016 in three years’ time,” he added. Swimmer from Beijing and Indonesia i very scare of it,i must train harder before WSK Inter-Club Swimming Championships
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 02:25:41 +0000