Midget team made an impressive outing to Gunung Keriang, Kedah

IBSC had never sent any swim team to the Kedah International Swimming Meet even though in the past, few individual swimmers have participated in the meet under their school banners.

This year in 2014, we were pleasantly surprised with the encouraging response from 20 swimmers and decided to form a team under IBSC. Out of the total of 20 swimmers, 6 were very young beginners while the rest have some fair bit of swim experience. Some key swimmers were expected to deliver some medals to the club.

As the team is small, no coaches accompanied the squad.  Instead 2 senior swimmers, Desmond Ng and Yap Li Wen, were appointed as swim captains to lead the warm-up sessions and guide the boys and girls accordingly. This provided an opportunity to groom these seniors as leaders as well as to impart some responsibilities to them during the swim meet.

Some of the swimmers flew up North with their parents while others prefer to drive to enjoy the greeneries. The self-driving gave the family the opportunity to treat the outing as a holiday cum swim meet trip. Along the way, they also had the opportunity to savour  breakfast and lunches at popular stops before arriving at the destination.

We arrived at Fuller Hotel, Alor Star on the eve of competition at various hours from afternoon till late at night. Dinner arrangement was on our own as arrival time was uncertain and the availability of numerous eateries near the hotel vicinity. The group was small and fragmented, hence we made our own arrangement for breakfast the next day. Most had Dim Sum which was a good 2 minutes walk, thereafter we made our way to the pool at 6.45am.

The Gunung Keriang Aquatic is unique as the venue has no address and it is located next to Guning Keriang surrounded by paddy fields. The famous landmarks within its vicinity are the Gunung Keriang and Paddy Museum. The journey from the hotel takes about 20 minutes but it can take much longer if you make a wrong turn!!!!

Gunung Keriang stadium fenced with beautiful natural surroundings and green paddy fields

This year’s meet in Kedah attracted 21 swim teams with a record of 509 swimmers. The meet was organised by the Persatuan Amatur Renang Kedah on 1-2 November, 2014. Most of the famous Penang swim clubs participated together with other clubs from Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Negeri Sembilan, Malacca, Johor as well as one foreign team from India (Madras Swimming Team).

On day 1, we had a decent start when Anson Chew delivered a bronze in the opening event of 200m Open Boys Freestyle and followed with string of medals scooped by Li Wen, Yi Xuan, Zachary, Zhen Yi, Ken Ji and Desmond. Penang Swimming Club was always matching us in the medal haul and by the end of day 1 led all the other teams with their stronger contingent.

We had a promising start on the 2nd day with 4 gold medals (Desmond, Li Wen, Zhen Yi and Ken Ji) out of the first 5 events. By end of 2nd day, we managed to collect 13 gold summing up a total of 21 gold, 9 silver and 16 bronze for the Kedah outing. IBSC swimmers renewed some meet records and they were broken by Desmond (50m & 200m breast) and Zhen Yi (100m free & fly).  Overall it is a splendid achievement by IBSC with only a midget team.

IBSC Swimmer	Meet Records	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Yeong Zhen Yi	3	6	2
Low Ken Ji		6	1	1
Yap Li Wen		4	1	2
Desmond Ng	3	3	2	3
Zachary Lim		1	2	4
Ng Yi Xuan		1	1	1
Anson Chew				2
Asley Chow				1
Girls Relay Team : Alia Salleh, Liew Shue Yuen, Nuraina Naziha, Yap Li Wen				2
TOTAL	6	21	9	16

Penang Swimming Club with a total of 46 of their top swimmers emerged as the overall champion followed by IBSC and Chinese Swimming Club.

See Full Results here.

The support and cooperation rendered by parents were simply superb. Appreciation goes to parents who chipped into buying breakfast, snacks, bananas and assisting whatever way they could during this away meet.

Thank you for the support and congrats to the swimmers. We may return with a more significant contingent in 2015.

Reported by,
Vincent Low, Team Manager

See more photos at IBSC Gallery

Ken Ji with his golden haul of 6 gold

Zhen Yi's medal and souvenirs collection to be cherished

* photos courtesy of IBSC parents