The 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games are over with host Malaysia becoming the overall champion. In aquatics, it’s time to recollect on what transpired during the games and events. So much has happened in thrills and spills along with its share of controversies that seems inescapable for any international games. Nevertheless, we were all at the edge of our seats fully knowing that this would be the most exciting SEA Games ever. We know the calibre swimmers have risen to a height never seen before and in most events, they proved us right.
All in all, 20 new records were made or rewritten. We saw some new talents in action and they surprised us as well. Likewise, we saw the old faces but this time around, they came to set new times. Singapore dominated in terms of medals and came out with 19 Gold, 6 Silver and 10 Bronze. That is close to twice the medal tally to second place Vietnam which ended their medal haul with 10, 7 and 6. Host nation Malaysia was third with 5, 3 and 3. In diving however, Malaysian made a clean sweep of the 13 golds for both the men’s and women’s events. Besides these, Malaysia also took the gold for the 10km Open water events for both men and women.
Though keen attention were accorded to the old-timers there were huge surprises stemming from the first-timers. This can be seen with the closeness in timings. Besides the 20 new SEA Games records set, there were also numerous national records broken as well. Joseph Schooling showed his mettle and being an Olympic gold medallist and record holder, he was undoubtedly the most watched while his mates – both men and women performed exceeding well too – culminating in dominating the swimming events. The Quah siblings in Ting Wen, Zheng Wen and Jing Wen were impacting with national and games record-tumbling performances. Welson Sim was Malaysia’s star and together with Phee Jinq En, managed to set new games records as well. Malaysia saw victory in the 10km Open Water event through Kevin Yeap in the men’s and Heidi Gan in the women’s categories.
In synchronized swimming, it’s evident that Singapore and Malaysia are keen competitors vying for first spot among South-East Asian nations. Malaysia won the gold in the Solo Technical Routine, followed by Singapore for silver and bronze. In the Solo Free Routine, Singapore took the gold and bronze with Malaysia taking the silver. Singapore again took the gold in the Duet Technical Routine while Malaysia again won silver and Indonesia took the bronze. In the Duet Free Routine, Malaysia won gold with silver going to Singapore and Indonesia bronze. However for Team Free Routine, Singapore won gold, Malaysia silver and Indonesia bronze.
