While five Singaporean swimmers successfully met the ‘A’ cut timings of 2:15:29:80 (men’s) and 2:38:47:39 (women’s) for the open water event for this year’s upcoming South-east Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, the top two male and female swimmers from the Liberty Insurance Open Water South-East Asian (SEA) Qualifiers 2017 held off Changi Coast on 25 March looks set to get the nomination nod to represent Singapore at the 29th SEA Games 2017 in KL.
The two fastest male swimmers to return to shore – Benedict Boon and Erasmus Ang completed swim with timings of 2:12:24:8 and 2:13:02:4 respectively.
Joining them were Chantal Liew and Chin Khar Yi who finished first and second in the female category, successfully meeting the A cut timing when they returned to shore in 2:31:36:4 and 2:33:13:5 respectively.
Herlene Natasha Yu, 16, with a timing of 2:37:00:0, also made the A cut timing.
Sharing his thoughts on the qualifiers, Lee Kok Choy, president of SSA, shared, “Open water swimming is extremely challenging, and requires significant courage, determination and will-power to compete across 10 kilometres.”
“The association will work closely with the coaches to support the athletes as they train and prepare for the upcoming SEA Games,” added Lee.
“Today’s Liberty Insurance Open Water South-East Asian Qualifiers show that there’s a tremendous amount of talent in Open Water swimming. We’re delighted with the results and are now even more focused to work with SSA and provide new platforms to grow the community, said Chang Sucheng, CEO of Liberty Insurance Singapore.
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