What a Phee-ling!
Jinq En entitled to her show of unbridled joy after smashing Yi Ting’s record
PHEE Jinq En punched the air and shrieked in delight upon seeing her name flashed on the scoreboard.
The 19- year- old swimmer does not often do this but one should excuse her for this show of exuberance at the National Aquatic Centre in Bukit Jalil last night.
After all, she had just cracked Siow Yi Ting’s eight- year old SEA Games women’s 100m breaststroke record to bag the gold.
Jinq En was ahead at the turn and kept her advantage to touch home in 1:09.00, smashing Yi Ting’s Games record of 1:09.82 set during the now-banned hi-tech swimsuit era in Laos in 2009.
It was the only Games record to go down on the fourth day of competition.
Singapore’s Samantha Louisa Yeo took silver in 1:09.44 while Indonesia’s Anandia Treciel Evato got bronze in 1:10.82.
It was the third swimming gold for Malaysia after Welson Sim’s double in the 200m and 400m freestyle events.
Jinq En also won the women’s 100m breaststroke at the Singapore Games two years ago.
“I am very relieved. I was under a lot of stress coming into this race because I was the defending champion and I was competing on home ground.
“I’m really, really glad I won as I believed that I could win the gold medal,” said Jinq En, who also swam at the Rio Olympics last year.
Selangor-born Jinq En had bagged a silver in the 50m breaststroke on Tuesday.
Malaysia’s 4x200m freestyle quartet of Welson, Lim Ching Hwang, Keith Lim and Yeap Zheng Yang took bronze in 7:26.91.
Singapore’s reigning Olympic champion Joseph Schooling raked in his fifth gold of the Games with victories in the men’s 100m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle yesterday.
Schooling had earlier come out tops in the 100m and 200m butterfly races, and 4x100m freestyle.