Captain's kids top on block
CAPTAIN Harry Wright's charges stole the limelight at Kowloon Park yesterday with Zachary Moffatt breaking a national junior record while Alex Fong Lik-sun and Naoko Ito setting age group marks.
Fifteen-year-old Moffatt, competing in the boys' 15 to 17 years age group, won the 50 metres backstroke in 30.08 seconds to shave 0.39 of a seconds off the long-standing Hong Kong junior record set by Arthur Li Kai-yin in 1987.
Moffatt's time, however, is not a record for his age division because Wilson Choy had done the race in 28.84 when he was a 17-year-old five years ago.
St Joseph's College pupil Fong set two records in the boys' 13 and 14 age category - for the 100 metres backstroke and the 200 metres individual medley.
The 14-year-old won the backstroke in 1:04.79 to improve Moffatt's record by 0.85 of a second and in the medley event he swam out of his own age division so as to have tougher competition.
Despite competing against older boys, Fong showed his rivals a clean pair of heels to touch the board in 1:17.38 to slice almost a second off the record for his own age category.
Ito was in a class of her own in the girls' 10-and-under division, winning four golds and setting a record of 3:17.62 in the 200 metres breaststroke event.
'Zac is now the third fastest swimmer in Hong Kong behind Michael Wright and Arthur Li and he's got tremendous potential,' Captain Wright said.
The only other swimmer to break a record was Pacific Swim Club's Lau Chun-chung, who clocked 3:09.68 for the 200 metres breaststroke in the boys' 10-and-under age division.
