Singapore’s athletes earn five more gold medals at Special Olympics World Games

SINGAPORE – Despite being disappointed with his disqualification from the MB02 50m breaststroke quarter-finals at the Special Olympics World Games on Friday, swimmer Nicholas Hee remained unfazed.

On Saturday, the 19-year-old bounced back in style to win the men’s MA03 50m freestyle in 30.89 seconds, eclipsing his personal best by 1.30sec. Greece’s Aris Makris finished second in 31.80sec while Fiji’s Iowane Taroko was third in 32.43sec.

Hee’s victory took Singapore’s tally to six golds, one silver and two bronzes at the Berlin meet as at press time.

With one more day of competition to go, this is already the highest gold medal haul since the 2011 edition, when its athletes racked up a sweet medal haul of 12 golds, 13 silvers and 12 bronzes.

Beaming from ear to ear with a gleaming gold medal slung around his neck, Hee said: “I was upset when I saw the DQ next to my name on the board.

“But I was happy that the timing for my breaststroke was a PB.

“I told myself not to let that affect my freestyle the next day.”

Hee, who clocked 45.88sec in the 50m breast, was disqualified for “swimming too fast” under the Special Olympics’ divisioning rule, which is in place to ensure that the finals pit athletes of equal or near-equal ability.

The rule is enforced when an athlete’s performance is more than a 15 per cent improvement from his “maximum effort” in the preliminary divisioning race.

The Republic won four other gold medals on Saturday through swimmer Vanette Lim, bowler Jocelyn Sng, badminton player Rohaizat Razid and the 4x400m mixed relay quartet.

Lim, who had finished fourth in the FB02 50m breaststroke on Tuesday, tasted gold this time in the FA04 50m freestyle.

She clocked 44.31sec, shaving 0.03sec off her previous best.

Lim, 20, had finished second in the race but the winner Shania Surujbally of Trinidad and Tobago was disqualified, allowing her to win the gold for Singapore.

She said: “I was very shocked but also very happy with my results as I went all out for my swim. I feel good that I won, but I won’t be complacent.

“I will continue to train hard because I want to lower my timing further for my future races.”

In the bowling arena, Jocelyn, who is Singapore’s youngest athlete at this meet at 15, emerged victorious in the D39 singles event.

She amassed 386 pinfalls to pip Chinese Taipei’s Li Zi-yu (366) and Saudi Arabia’s Zahra Boubaid (306) to the title.

Jocelyn said her win was unexpected as she thought she would finish only second out of six. “I was very stressed at first and coach Rachel (Ng) assured me that I was doing well and to treat it as a training session,” she added.

”That was how I managed to get four strikes in a row.

“I am very happy and this medal will make me want to train harder for other competitions.”

Teammate Abbas Ahmad, 19, settled for silver in the men’s D63 singles with 493 pinfalls, behind Malta’s Luke Burke (560).

The next gold came at the track. Pakistan had crossed the finish line first in 4min 46.04sec, just ahead of Ecuador (4:52.36), but both teams were handed technical disqualifications.

The decision meant that Singapore’s quartet of Siti Nurhazimah Hamzah, 21, Rozana Abdullah, 22, Mohammad Zulkhairi and Irving Tan, both 17, who recorded 4:59.89 to finish third initially, were handed the gold.

Irving had

won the Republic’s first gold medal

of the Berlin meet in the 1,500m men’s Level C final on Wednesday.

On the badminton courts, Rohaizat clinched gold in the men’s singles 6B event. He won all three of his matches against opponents from Germany, Libya and Estonia. 

Earlier, he and Jerica Tan, 20, had also bagged the bronze in the mixed doubles MXD08.

The Special Olympics World Games is the largest international sporting meet for athletes with intellectual disabilities, with about 7,000 athletes and unified partners from 190 countries competing in 26 sports at this meet.

Singapore is represented in six sports by 30 athletes and unified partners, who are persons without intellectual disabilities competing in the same team.