Swimming: Singapore end Commonwealth Youth Games campaign with gold and silver

NASSAU (Bahamas) - Singapore's young swimmers ended their Commonwealth Youth Games campaignon a golden note on Saturday night (Sunday morning, July 23, Singapore time) when they bagged one more gold to bring their overall haul to seven titles. 

Samuel Khoo, Quah Jing Wen, Francis Fong and Natasha Ong splashed their way to victory in the Mixed 4 x 100m medley relay, touching the wall in 3min 56.74sec, ahead of New Zealand who took silver in 3:57.21. England were third in 3:59.33.

Said Samuel: "Overall, it was a great experience for me, racing against good competition. I am happy with my times and the medals that I won. I am looking forward to the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games."

The gold was Jing Wen's second relay gold of the Games. She was part of the quartet that won the Mixed 4x100m freestyle relay on Friday. 

The 16-year-old Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) student missed out, however, on winning her fourth individual gold at the Games when she finished second in the Girls 200m butterfly final. Jing Wen, who came home in 2:13.29, was beaten by England's Ciara Schlosshan who clocked 2:10.95.  

Before the 200m fly final, Jing Wen had struck gold in the 50m and 100m butterfly and the 100m freestyle.

Singapore eventually finished fourth in the swimming medal standings at the Commonwealth Youth Games with seven golds, four silvers and six bronzes. England emerged the top swimming country (9-9-4) while South Africa (8-3-4) and New Zealand (7-8-5) were second and third respectively.

National youth head coach Leonard Tan, who led the team in Bahamas said: "I am pleased with the overall performance of the team. Shoutout to the Singapore officials for working tirelessly for the team.

"Medals were delivered, but our main focus is on consistency and preparing the swimmers for the SEA Games and World Juniors.

"We saw some good consistent performance from a lot of the swimmers. However, we are only halfway there because their target meets are a few weeks away.

"There were definitely some ups and downs over the course of CYG. There were some races that we felt the swimmers could do better in, and the swimmers themselves are aware of that and they will need to be on their toes and to work harder over the next few weeks as Kuala Lumpur approaches."