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Sasha Christian's slalom win marks Singapore's 50th SEA Games gold medal

Sasha Christian has secured Singapore’s 50th gold medal the 2017 SEA Games with a win in the women’s slalom in the waterski event at the Putrajaya Water Sports Complex.

She scored 3.5/55/13.00m on a cloudy Tuesday morning (29 Aug). Christian told Yahoo News Singapore, “I was really, really nervous going into the final today. I was last off the dock so I got to see all my competitors… I’m just really happy with how it turned out. I’m really, really happy to win the 50th gold medal for Singapore. It’s a huge honour to be representing my country.”

Malaysia’s Aaliyah Yoong Hanifah took silver and Indonesia’s Ummu Sholikah took bronze. “Coming into this competition, I knew who the strong competitors were, I knew exactly what I needed to do as well. It’s good – I like to see the standard of the sport increasing. It only helps us as a whole,” said Christian.

Christian, 24, clinched her second gold of this Games after her wakeboard gold last Saturday.

On Monday, she had set a new Games record in the slalom preliminaries with a score of 1.00/55/12.00m.

Later in the morning, Mark Leong made it 51 golds when he too retained his slalom crown.

Christian and Leong’s gold medals have added to Singapore’s best ‘away’ showing at a SEA Games, surpassing the 43 golds the contingent won at the 2007 SEA Games in Korat, Thailand.

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