PETALING JAYA: Move over Daniel Bego!
Unheralded youngster Lim Ching Hwang (pic) has emerged as the fastest sprinter in the pool for Malaysia and has a real chance to kick up a storm if he continues with his rapid improvement in the coming months.
The 17-year-old, who is based in Singapore, earned early qualification for the World Championships in Barcelona in July at the recent Singapore national age-group meet for the men’s 200m freestyle.
More interestingly is that Ching Hwang’s personal bests in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle events have put him in line for glory at the Myanmar SEA Games in December.
Ching Hwang not just comfortably surpassed the qualifying time for the 200m freestyle for Barcelona (1:52.21) with his winning time of 1:50.42 in Singapore but also booked early qualification for the SEA Games.
The qualifying marks for the Games in December are based on the silver medal placings in Indonesia two years ago – 50.98 for 100m freestyle and 1:52.23 for 200m freestyle.
Ching Hwang swam personal bests of 50.87 (100m freestyle) and 23.93 (50m freestyle) respectively and could very well bring down Daniel’s national marks in the 100m and 20m freestyle events.
Daniel clocked 50.16 and 1:49.22 at the Laos SEA Games back in 2009 while wearing the hi-tech swimming suit which has since been banned.
It looks like Ching Hwang has stepped up to the challenge and is currently a second faster in Daniel’s pet events.
Ching Hwang may be studying and training at the Singapore Sports School but has vowed his allegiance to Malaysia.
“I want to represent the country. I made my SEA Games debut in Indonesia two years ago but I have improved a lot after moving to Singapore,” said Ching Hwang.
“The environment here is good and I do 10 sessions a week, including weekends.
“The SEA Games is still some time away and I’m now setting my sights on assignments like the Asian Youth Games in Nanjing (Aug 16-24) and World Junior Championships in Dubai (Aug 26-31).
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