ONE is fair, tall, bespectacled, speaks like a shotgun and competing in his first international meet.

The other is tanned, shorter, chooses his words carefully and was a multiple winner at last month's South-east Asia Junior Championships.

On the surface, swimmers Wang Ximing and Ketin Nuttapong seem to have little in common. But nothing could separate the breaststrokers over 100 metres yesterday.

The 17-year-olds from China and Thailand respectively clocked an identical 1min 04.45sec on the third day of the Asian Youth Games swimming competition, winning joint-gold medals.

China's Ximing, who had a 0.43sec lead at the turn, said: 'I could see he was catching up near the end. So I'm happy to still get the gold. But it would have been nicer if I didn't need to share it.'

Both had looked anxiously in each other's lane after touching the wall, and discovered their joint-win seconds later when the results were displayed on the scoreboard above the Singapore Sports School pool.

The 1.72m-tall Ketin is over a head shorter than Ximing, but his overall strength contributed to his strong surge in the final 30m.

'I just swam as fast as I could at the end,' said the Chiangmai native, who won three golds and one silver at the SEA Junior meet in Kuala Lumpur.

South Korean Gil Byeong Hwi was third in 1:04.91, while Singapore's Lionel Khoo finished fourth (1:05.09).

There was joy in the home camp in the last of yesterday's seven finals - the girls' 4x100m medley relay.

Read the full story in The Sunday Times.