PETALING JAYA: Wong Fu Kang fell short in his bid to bag a glorious breaststroke treble at the Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG) in Samoa.
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| The 17-year-old, who had won the 50m and 100m breaststroke titles earlier, finished second in the 200m event. |
The 17-year-old, who had won the 50m and 100m breaststroke titles earlier, could only end up second in the 200m race behind England’s Edward Baxter.
Fu Kang touched the wall at 2:18.18 to improve on his previous personal best of 2:18.20 set at the National Age Group Championship in April. But Baxter was better, clocking 2:15.80.
South Africa’s James Greig Isemonger took bronze in 2:19.99.
Fu Kang admits he has Elvin Chia’s national mark of 2:15.62 in his sights as he aims to be a formidable breaststroke specialist.
Fu Kang holds the national records for both the 50m breaststroke (28.67) and 100m breaststroke (1:02.46).
“I failed to win my third goal, but at least I ended my CYG campaign by setting a new personal best,” said the Phuket-based Fu Kang.
“I’m not that strong in the 200m. I’m certainly going to focus on it in the next few months. For endurance, I guess I need to put a lot of emphasis on aerobics.
“I’m giving myself until the end of the year to try and dip under 2:16 before chasing Elvin’s long-standing record.”
Welson Sim, winner of the 400m freestyle gold, hit a low – clocking 24.35 to finish last in the men’s 50m freestyle final.
Weightlifting contributed its third gold of the week for the Malaysian contingent through Jabriella Teo Samuel in the women’s above 69kg category.
Jabriella clinched gold with a total lift of 186kg, beating Samoa’s Feagaiga Stowers (172kg) and Cameroon’s Rayssa Djifack Ma-atemken Zomgoua (169kg).
Erry Hidayat (men’s 69kg) and Nur Atikah Sobri (women’s 58kg) struck gold in weightlifting on Wednesday.
Malaysia also claimed a bronze in lawn bowls, with Fatin Nurrawiah Shamsudin-Muhd Saifudin Zulkepli beating New Zealand’s Seamus Curtin-Ashleigh Jeffcoat 22-10 for third spot in the mixed doubles event.
Along with the three gold medals from squash on Thursday, the national contingent now have a total haul of 11-3-3 to be placed fourth in the medal standings. Squash completed a clean sweep of all the five gold medals at stake while swimming and weightlifting each contributed three golds in Malaysia’s total medal tally.
Australia (23-18-19) are top of the medal standings, followed by England (12-16-16) and South Africa (12-7-15).
The 11-3-3- haul will be the country’s final tally as well because Malaysia are not represented in rugby 7s and tennis – the last two events before the Games conclude Friday.
Still, it is Malaysia’s best-ever performance at the CYG, surpassing the 6-9-3 haul in the 2004 edition in Bendigo, Australia.
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