Oly title-holder Schooling ends his season on a high
Malaysia claim 1st 3 titles
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 26, (AFP): Olympic titleholder Joseph Schooling celebrated on Saturday as he reached his target of six gold medals at the Southeast Asian Games, ending his season on a high after a disappointing world championships.
On the final night of swimming in Kuala Lumpur, Schooling propelled Singapore’s 4x100m medley relay team to victory in 3min 37.46sec, beating the Games record they set two years ago in their home pool.
Schooling, Quah Zheng Wen, Lionel Khoo and Darren Lim whooped and cheered as they left the pool deck, after the convincing win left Singapore on a table-topping 19 golds for the meet.
Schooling, the Olympic 100m butterfly champion, increased Singapore’s narrow lead by just under two seconds in the butterfly leg. Their eventual margin of victory was 2.88sec over Indonesia.
Schooling’s six golds, which include three individual titles, come after he could only take 100m butterfly bronze at the world championships, a year after his stunning Olympic win.
Earlier Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Anh Vien, nicknamed “Little Mermaid”, flashed a victory sign as she snared her eighth win of the competition in the women’s 200m freestyle, clocking a Games-record 1:59.24.
Her 17-year-old compatriot Nguyen Hoy Hoang smashed the Games’ men’s 1,500m record by 11 seconds as he swam 15:20.10 to win by a distance.
And Amanda Lim won the women’s 50m freestyle for the fifth consecutive SEA Games, underlining Singapore’s dominance of the swimming pool.
In diving, Olympic silver-medallist Pandelela Rinong and Gabriel Gilbert Daim won the 10m synchronised platform as Malaysia claimed the first three titles in the sport.
Wendy Ng led a Malaysian onetwo in the women’s 3m springboard and Ooi Tze Liang won the men’s 3m springboard, as Malaysia set off on their bid to sweep the diving competition.
Malaysia also had success in shooting, as Jonathan Wong upset Vietnam’s Olympic champion Hoang Xuan Vinh to win the men’s 10m air pistol competition.
The hosts picked up further wins in water skiing, indoor hockey, lawn bowls, taekwondo, gymnastics and show jumping as they added 14 gold medals to reach 82, 33 ahead of Vietnam on the overall table.
High jumper Nauraj Singh edged fellow Malaysian Lee Hup Wei on countback after they both cleared 2.24m, equalling the Games record, while Malaysia’s Rayzam Shah won the 110m hurdles.
N. Thanabalan’s 87th-minute strike put Malaysia into the men’s football final as they beat Indonesia 1-0. In the other semi-final Thailand beat Myanmar 1-0 thanks to Chenrop Samhaodi’s stoppage-time header.
And Thai top seed Luksika Kumkhum, the world number 180, won the women’s singles tennis final 6-0, 6-1 against Anna Clarice Patrimonio of the Philippines.