The Star : Swimmer Welson sets new PB in Youth Olympics

PETALING JAYA: There were no medals to show on the first day but national junior shuttlers Cheam June Wei and Lee Ying Ying got off to a fine start at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing.

June Wei, a quarter-finalist at the World Junior Championships this year disposed off Nepal’s Dipesh Dhami 21-13, 21-11 in 27 minutes in his opening men’s singles Group C match on Sunday.

The 17-year-old faces Thailand’s Mek Narongrit on Monday. June Wei will need to win all his matches as only the winner of the group moves onto the quarter-finals.

Ying Ying also chalked up an easy 21-13, 21-6 victory over Austria’s Janine Lais in her singles opening Group H match. Ying Ying takes on Katrina Beton of Slovenia on Monday.

June Wei and Ying Ying also saw action in the mixed doubles event.

June Wei partnered Hong Kong’s Ng Tsz Yau to beat the Austria-Mexico pair of Wolfgang Gnedt and Sabrina Martinez 21-12, 21-9 in Group C while in Group D, Ying Ying and Taiwan’s Lu Chia-hung fought back from a game down to beat Vietnamese-Turkish pair Pham Cao Cuong-Aliye Demirbag 19-21, 21-9, 21-17.

At the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre, swimmer Welson Sim clocked a new personal best of 3:55.72 in the men’s 400m freestyle.

The 17-year-old Sarawakian shaved more than three seconds off his old time of 3:59.21. He missed out on the final as his time was only good enough for fifth place in his heat.

Malaysian swimmer Welson Sim broke his personal best time in the 400m freestyle at the Youth Olympics in China on Sunday. - Filepic

Ukraine’s Mykhailo Romanchuk took the gold in 3:49.76 ahead of El Salvador’s Marcelo Alberto Acosta (3:51.32) and Norway’s Henrik Christiansen (3:51.55).

Meanwhile in artistic gymnastics, Jeremiah Loo scored 77.025 to finish 16th in the men’s individual all-around during the qualification competition.

The 16-year-old who trains at the Tuo Dong Ti Yu Guan school in Kunming, China finished ninth in the pommel horse (13.500) and sixth in parallel bars (13.575) behind top performers Ukraine’s Vladyslav Hryko (14.150) and Britain’s Giarnni Regini-Moran (14.30) respectively.

Jeremiah finished 18th in the floor (13.150), 20th in the horizontal bars (12.500), 30th in the rings (11.500) and scored 12.800 in the vault to finish 36th.