With nine gold medals and seven new meet records, Vien Thi Anh Nguyen of Vietnam stole the show at the 2nd Southeast Asia Swimming Championships in Singapore last weekend. Nguyen, who swims for St. Augustine Swim Team in Florida but represents Vietnam internationally, was victorious across four event disciplines (freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, and IM) and in five different distances (50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 meter races):
- 400 meter freestyle: 4:12.94 – 1st – meet record
- 800 meter freestyle: 8:40.75 – 1st – meet record
- 50 meter backstroke: 29.51 – 1st – meet record
- 100 meter backstroke: 1:02.72 – 1st – 0.02 off meet record
- 200 meter backstroke: 2:12.74 – 1st – meet record
- 100 meter butterfly: 1:00.69 – 1st
- 200 meter butterfly: 2:12.46 – 1st – meet record
- 200 meter IM: 2:14.58 – 1st – meet record
- 400 meter IM: 4:49.03 – 1st – meet record
The 400 freestyle, 800 freestyle, 100 fly, 200 fly, and 200 IM swims were all also Vietnam national records for the 17-year-old Nguyen.
Although Nguyen was the biggest story of the meet, Marina Chan Nur and Amanda Lim of Singapore both made some waves, as well. Chan Nur set a meet record in the 50 meter butterfly (27.49), while the 21-year-old Lim defended her titles in the 50 and 200 meter freestyles.
On the men’s side, Nguyen’s countrymate Quy Phuoc Hong flexed his muscles in the shorter freestyle events with new meet records in the 100 (50.06) and 200 (1:49.69) meter freestyles, setting new Vietnamese records in both events (as well as the 400 freestyle later in the meet). 21-year-old Nuttapong Ketin of Thailand was the other notable double-winner, sweeping the 100 and 200 meter breaststrokes. Not to be left out, Indonesia had three individual meet records of their own from Glen Victor Sutanto (50 meter butterfly, 24,38), Triady Fauzi (200 IM, 2:02.05), and Siman Sudartawa (50 meter backstroke, 25.52).
Full meet results are available on Meet Mobile if you search “2nd SEA Championships 2014”.