PETALING JAYA: Khiew Hoe Yean’s dominance aside, Malaysia’s next generation of swimmers made a strong statement at the Malaysian Open in Bukit Jalil, with teenagers Shannon Tan and Nadia Lim delivering performances that came close to rewriting the record books.
Their performances have given fresh hopes that Malaysia do not just have to depend on Hoe Yean to deliver the medals at the home SEA Games in Sarawak next year.
Sixteen-year-old Shannon clocked 1:02.23s in the women’s 100m butterfly to finish just 1.19s shy of Marellyn Liew’s 17-year national mark of 1:01.04.
Shannon, swimming for Selangor, also came agonisingly close to lowering her personal best in the 200m butterfly, touching the wall in 2:15.72s, a mere 0.01s outside the 2:15.71s she set at last year’s Asian Youth Games in Bahrain.
Another 16-year-old Nadia was equally impressive, winning the women’s 100m freestyle in 57.59s, just 0.03s off Loo Yie Bing’s national record of 57.56s set in 2022.
Her gold is the first won by a Perak swimmer at the Malaysian Open after more than a decade and Nadia is also the first swimmer in nearly four years to dip below the 58s mark.
Still, Hoe Yean remained the standout at the National Aquatics Centre, sweeping seven individual gold medals across freestyle, backstroke and individual medley events.
Interim national coach Magnus Andersen believes the performances from both senior and junior swimmers signal positive progress ahead of a crucial four-month build-up to the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.
“It is about aiming for what is really important and that is the summer competitions. We still have four more months before we are racing, so everything is fine for now.”
Andersen added the Malaysia Open served its purpose as a key early-season benchmark following the post-SEA Games reset, with the focus firmly on peaking later in the year.
“This is our first real competition after the Thailand SEA Games in December. We took a short break and then focused on building towards the competitions coming up this year,” said the Dane.
“So this is a perfect test to see where we are at. We have been doing a lot of fundamentals and working on basics, and now we are ready to work towards those competitions.”
Amid the transition following the departure of former coach Eric Anderson, Andersen noted that the swimmers have remained focused and professional while awaiting a new appointment to lead the programme forward.
“The group are professionals. They have goals and they know why they are showing up every day.
“We are looking forward to having a new coach come in and set a new direction for the team and that is going to be really good.”
Malaysia Aquatics are expected to announce the new swimming head coach at the end of the month.
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