S'pore men's waterpolo wins SEA Games gold
By Satish Cheney
The Singapore men's waterpolo team has won gold yet again, holding on to their dominance of the sport in the region.
They defeated Malaysia 15-7 at the Lumban Tirtir Swimming Stadium in Palembang on Friday evening.
Under the rules, the team which wins the most number of round robin games gets the gold medal and Singapore has won all its matches.
Indonesia grabbed the silver, while Thailand had to settle for bronze.
Singapore has never lost in the SEA Games since independence in 1965. This is its 24th gold medal.
Team manager Wong Kok Piew said that more younger players were fielded against Malaysia to give them exposure at a regional level.
"There's a disparity when it comes to strength with the Malaysians being stronger but we led all the way on the scoreboard. The boys could have done better but they've also had couple of tough matches recently as well," said Wong.
Wong added that after a short one-week break, the team will resume training and prepare for the Asian Games.
The country's women's waterpolo team also won gold when they defeated host nation Indonesia 11-9 last week.
It was the first time the women's event was taking place at the SEA Games.
Over in Jakarta, Singapore's sailors grabbed two gold medals when Elisa Yokoyama came out top in the optimist class while the duo of Sara Tan and Dawn Liu won the 470 women's event.
Tan and Liu will be taking part in the World Championships in Perth in December.
Team manager Chung Pei Ming told Yahoo! Singapore he is happy with the performance especially since the winners are all debutantes at the SEA Games.
"In fact, half the team this year is new to the SEA Games. Our good performances means we have a good system that's correct when it comes to selection," said Chung.
In bowling, the women won gold in the team event by defeating Indonesia with a score of 6332 points at the Jaya Ancol Bowling Centre.
There are more medal opportunities coming up over the next few days for the keglers.
Over in badminton, 21-year-old Fu Mingtian became the first Singaporean woman to ever reach the SEA Games singles finals.She defeated Thailand's Intanon Ratchanok 21-17, 19-21, 22-20 in the semi-finals. Fu will battle it out with Indonesia's Firdasari Adryanti on Saturday afternoon at the Istora Senayan Stadium for the gold medal.
"It still feels like a dream. I never thought about what would happen after the end result. I only concentrated on the match when I was playing," said Fu.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s queen of the waves, Sasha Christian, will finish her debut SEA Games with one gold, two silvers and a bronze.
The 18-year-old picked up her second silver when her team, which includes her elder brother Matthew, came in second in the mixed wakeboard team overall event on Friday morning.
She clinched her bronze in the women's water-ski overall event.
“We all felt pretty positive about the finals and we went out there and did our best. We were all looking forward to the SEA Games for the entire year," said Christian.
Unfortunately, water-skiing and wakeboarding are not on the initial sports list for the 2013 Games.
Her coach Paul Fong said, “The current group of athletes will form the backbone of the next SEA Games Team and we hope to have both waterskiing and wakeboarding included in 2015 when we can do our nation proud on home ground."
The gold drought continued for the fencing team at the SEA games.
The Singapore women’s foil team lost to Vietnam 30-16 and had to settle for silver.
After a poor start against the Philippines in the quarter-finals, the team managed a comeback and later on nudged past Thailand in a long and drawn-out semi-final round before losing to the Vietnamese in the finals.
Singapore last won the gold medal in 2005 and 2007.
Besides the silver, the fencers only managed two bronze medals (men's team foil and women's individual epee).
The team will be heading back to the drawing board to figure out what went wrong as they were nowhere close to their target of five gold medals.
"The SEA Games gives us a platform we can build up and at this point take a good hard look at ourselves, do a good review and see how we can reach the 2016 Olympics—our eventual target,” said team manager Ryan Quek.
Fencing chief Nicholas Fang said he was disappointed but highlighted that some of the fencers were rookies.
“The athletes tried their best but were unable to keep pace with their opponents who have themselves improved in leaps and bounds,” said Fang.
He said he will speak to his fencers and have an in-depth review soon.
“We will make the necessary improvements needed to ensure that we stay on track for our targets at the Asian Games and the Olympics,” he added.
Fencing will not feature at the next SEA Games in Myanmar but countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are lobbying for the sport to be included.
Additional reporting by Jeanette Tan
