By Ahmad Nazrin Syahmi Mohamad Arif
BANGKOK, Dec 11 (Bernama) – Artistic gymnastics proved to be the saviour of the national contingent on the second day of the SEA Games Thailand 2025 after delivering four medals, including one gold, at Thammasat University’s Rangsit Campus in Pathum Thani today.
National gymnast Rachel Yeoh produced a captivating performance to win the women’s uneven bars gold with a score of 13.300 points — the artistic gymnastics camp’s first gold of this edition.
It was also the national contingent’s sole gold medal on Day Two and the third overall, following the men’s 5s hockey team and the women’s recognised poomsae trio who struck gold yesterday.
At the same time, the gymnastics squad also secured a silver medal through Luqman Al Hafiz Zulfa in the men’s floor exercise after he recorded 12.833 points.
Two more bronze medals were contributed by Muhammad Sharul Aimy Kamaru Hisam in the men’s pommel horse and Yeap Kang Xian in the men’s vault event.
Meanwhile, at the Sports Authority of Thailand swimming complex, two national records were broken in the men’s 50-metre freestyle and the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
Young swimmer Tong Yu Jing made history on his SEA Games debut by breaking the national record en route to winning bronze in the 50m freestyle with a time of 22.48 seconds, erasing the previous mark of 22.91s set by Bryan Leong in the United Kingdom last May.
In the 4x200m freestyle relay, the national quartet of Khiew Hoe Yean, Terence Ng, Ananda Lim and Arvin Shaun Singh finished second with a time of 7:19.50s.
The time beat the previous record of 7:19.66s set by Hoe Yean, Arvin Shaun, Lim Yin Chuen and Tan Khai Xin at the 2025 World University Games in Berlin last July.
Additionally, the karate, taekwondo, jiujitsu and waterski camps each contributed a silver medal, further boosting the medal tally as the national contingent continue their mission to reach the target of 200 medals of any colour.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s 100m sprint star Puripol Boonson created history by becoming the first Southeast Asian runner to dip under 10 seconds when he clocked 9.94s during the heats, smashing the Games record of 10.03s held by Indonesian sprinter Lalu Muhammad Zohri.
Puripol later secured the gold medal in the final with a time of 10s, followed by Zohri in second (10.25s) and Malaysia’s young sprinter Danish Iftikhar Muhammad Roslee who bagged bronze with a time of 10.26s.
As of 10pm local time (11pm Malaysia), Thailand continued to dominate the medal table with 41 gold, 24 silver and 14 bronze, followed by Vietnam (14, 8, 27), Indonesia (13, 20, 13) while Malaysia (3, 12, 21) sit in sixth position.
-- BERNAMA
