Famed for their dominance in swimming and producing Olympians like Joseph Schooling and Quah Zheng Wen, Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) might have just produced a potential star in Dylan Koo.
On the final day of the 57th National Schools Swimming Championships yesterday at the OCBC Aquatic Centre, he broke the boys' A Division 100m butterfly meet record in a time of 54.30sec.
He beat his own previous mark (55.00) set on Monday during the heats - smashing alumnus Jerryl Yong's record of 56.43 set in 2013.
Dylan, 16, said: "I was definitely aiming for a good time. Actually I was looking to go under 53 seconds which I couldn't do, but I still felt it was a good race as I had executed my plan well.
"I didn't come back as hard I should have, which I need to work on and that's a good thing because now I know what to improve on."
Throughout the schools meet, Dylan competed in four races and broke meet records with each victory (50m butterfly, 4x50m freestyle relay and the 4x50m medley relay). That gave him the most gold medals, alongside school-mates Francis Fong, Mikkel Lee and Darren Chua.
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Schools swimming: List of winners
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Boys' A Division
1 Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)
2 Raffles Institution
3 Anglo-Chinese Junior College
B Division
1 ACS(I)
2 Singapore Sports School
2 RI
C Division
1 ACS(I)
2 RI
2 SSP
Girls' A Division
1 RI
2 ACJC
3 SSP
B Division
1 Raffles Girls' School
2 Methodist Girls' School
2 SSP
C Division
1 MGS
2 RGS
2 SSP
Now setting his sights on the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Hawaii, having qualified for the 50m free, 100m free, 100 fly and 200m fly, Dylan is not shying away from a podium finish in August.
He said: "I'm not sure who I'll be up against but I'll definitely be going there as a medal contender and not just a participant.
"Singapore swimming has come up well internationally. We want to see four or five people making finals and getting medals, which is what we hope to achieve and aim for."
ACS(I)'s teacher-in-charge of swimming Goh Hwee Hwee highlighted Dylan's exemplary showing and said: "It always helps to have a role model for the rest to aspire towards. Just like Zheng Wen and Schooling, they let the boys know if they keep working hard, they can also achieve the same kind of results."
Other individual meet record breakers yesterday were the Methodist Girls' School (MGS) pair of Quah Jing Wen (100m fly) and Natasha Ong (100m free), ACS(I)'s Darren Chua (100m free), Raffles Institution's (RI) Chloe Wang (200m free) and Lim Kah Yi (50m mix) from Pathlight School.
It was a clean sweep for ACS(I) boys when they took the A, B and C Division titles. For the girls, RI won the A Division crown, while Raffles Girls' School and MGS were top in the B and C divisions respectively.
