Our small and spicy team of fourteen swimmers (including IBSC Coach Daniel Lee) and families went on our maiden trip to 2018 Thanyapura Invitational Super Sprint Meet (5th - 7th October 2018) organised by Phuket International Sports Club at world class Thanyapura Sports Resort in Phuket, Thailand.
Held for three days, the meet attracted about 237 international participants mainly from swimming clubs and international schools in Phuket, a club from China (Wellington Shanghai), a club from Singapore (Cis Huskies) and two clubs from Malaysia (Flying Eagles and IBSC).
Despite our small number, we brought home 11 Gold, 21 Silver, 9 Bronze medals and numerous ribbons (for swimmers who achieved 4th to 8th places in their events). A total of 41 medals! Not bad for a swim team of fourteen swimmers :)
Besides medals and ribbons, there are High Point Trophy Awards given for top three swimmers (both for men and women) in each age group.
Riverling Choo (9) was awarded best swimmer for her age group (Female 9-10 years old) and contributed 287 points to our club. She was top three swimmers in almost all her events and received 4 Gold, 6 Silver and 3 Bronze medals. Well done Riverling!
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| The High Point Trophy Award for this category was presented by Irankunda Isihaka, a national swimmer from Rwanda. |
Next IBSC swimmer who received the award was Ho Jia Ming (12). He got second highest point in his age category (Male 11-12 years old) with 213 points and brought home the most medals, a total of 15 that consist of 5 Golds, 7 Silvers and 1 Bronze. Congratulations Jia Ming and family.
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| The award for this category was presented by Pak Mi Song, a national swimmer from North Korea. |
Meanwhile, Oswin Wong became the third highest points (192) collector for his age category (Male 13-14 years old) and brought home 10 medals (2 Gold, 6 Silver and 2 Bronze).
One special feature in Thanyapura Super Sprint was 50m freestyle elimination race that was held on Friday 5th October late afternoon. It was a new experience to some of our novice swimmers, who usually competed in Time Finals. Only swimmers who 'checked in' (registered personally) were allowed to race. The events were divided into three rounds - preliminary (all who checked in), semi-final (8 fastest) and final (4 fastest swimmers).
Though there were several hiccups in the coordination of the events and tallying of results, matters were solved and results were reflected rather accurately, with some of our swimmers like Awwal Zasfika (10), Raiyan Raesh (10) and Tang Jun Han (8) received their first individual Silver and Bronze medals.
Another unique feature of Thanyapura Super Sprint was their Mixed 8 x 25m Freestyle Relay which we had never tried previously (because the usual relays in swim meets are 4 people per team). So this was interesting and proved to be a challenge to our small team as we did not have 8 swimmers in the same age group category. Moreover the mixed relay requirement was 4 male and 4 female swimmers. Though the saving grace was the exception that younger swimmer may 'swim up' to older age group category.Despite the obvious age disadvantage, our team manage to secure second place in the relay with timing 2:07.83 minutes. Congratulations everyone.
Many thanks to friendly Thanyapura Super Sprint 2018 organising team. A few names that I remember are Coach Charlie Pike, Coach Miguel Lopez, Grace and Zara. Hope to see you all again.
Last but not least, much appreciation to all the swim parents who help the team in one way or another. Our participation in Thanyapura Super Sprint would not have been successful without your support.
Thank you May for helping our swimmers keep tab of their heat at the marshall reporting area.
Thank you Evi and Choo, Joan and Damian, Yen Ling and Ho, Ummi, Brenda, and our backbone Ms Nancy Yap.
Till next swim trip abroad, happy training everyone.
Warm regards,
Zaszima Abu Samah
Team Manager
