S’pore synchro duet pair aim to catch Malaysia

SINGAPORE — As the song “The Boogie Bumper” by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy blared over the speakers of the OCBC Aquatic Centre on the opening day of the SEA Games synchronised swimming competition yesterday, Singapore’s Stephanie Chen and Crystal Yap were right on sync for their duet technical routine event, wowing the crowd with fast choreography and slick manoeuvres.

But the pair know they will need to maintain their form if they are to unseat favourites Malaysia.

At the end of all the routines by the eight participating nations yesterday, Malaysia’s Katrina Hadi and Lee Yhing Huey lead after posting a high score of 75.3436, with Chen/Yap second (73.9705).

Singapore’s other duet pair of Natalie Chen and Debbie Soh are third (70.4160) ahead of today’s free preliminary round and finals tomorrow.

The hosts can still overhaul the Malaysians, but 20-year-old Stephanie Chen believes it will be an uphill task.

“We did our best and put up quite a good show, but we could have done better as our timing was a little off in some parts,” she said.

“We hope to beat them (Malaysia), and are still able to catch up, but that margin (1.3731) is quite big.

“However, we still have the team events which we are confident in, and hopefully get the first gold (for synchronised swimming) at the SEA Games for Singapore.”

Malaysia dominated the synchronised swimming competition at the 2001 and 2011 SEA Games — the last two times the sport featured at the biennial meet — but their national team managaer Siu Wai Leng believes it won’t be as easy this time to replicate that success.

“Our team underwent a re-organisation, and only managed to get 10 girls who started training together since mid last year,” she said.

“Many have retired and we struggled to recruit new members. We are hopeful of the gold in the duet at this SEA Games, but not for the team and free combi events.

“But come 2017 SEA Games in Malaysia, we will resume our superiority in the sport and hopefully start sweeping all the gold medals again.” ADELENE WONG