Time to go deep
Coach Birmingham wants swimmers to match Asian Games level
PETALING JAYA: National swimming coach Paul Birmingham believes the national swimmers are a long way from the Asian Games standard.
This was based on a mixed bag of results by the national swimmers at the recently concluded four-day Malaysian Open in Bukit Jalil.
Olympian Welson Sim was the best of the bunch as he comfortably won three events – the 200m, 400m and 1500m freestyle – despite carrying a heel injury.
Welson’s time in the 200m – 1:47.97 – was also a season best and a meet record, not far off his national record time of 1:47.36.
Other seasoned swimmers such as Tern Jian Han, Keith Lim and Wong Fu Kang also fared within expectations as they bagged two golds each.
The women, however did not fare so well with only Selangor’s Rosalind Pang emerging a winner.
The 17-year-old bagged the 200m backstroke gold on Saturday.
Birmingham, who has been in charge of the national team since 2008, however was not discouraged with the swimmers’ progression.
“I thought it was an excellent meet for the swimmers. I don’t think they fared too bad at all,” said the Aussie.
“To have a good stretch of many record breaking performances is not so common but quite a few of them pulled off some good times.
“There were quite a few season best times and the seniors are showing the ability and con- sistency to drop their times.
“Of course, it’s still too far to look at the Asian Games. That is the event that we certainly hope to raise our level to.
“But to do that we still need a lot more investment and to have the juniors keep showing progress.
“I felt that this meet has been good for the juniors. There were quite a few good young ones showing some good times and coming through,” added Birmingham.
For now Birmingham’s task is to get the seniors ready for the Mare Nostrum Tour in Europe next month.
Last year, Welson earned a breakthrough on the tour when he beat Olympic gold medallist Mack Horton of Australia for the gold in the 400m event.