KUALA LUMPUR: The Langkawi Swimming Festival competition which concluded yesterday was a bittersweet outing for swimming coach Cindy Ong and her charges.
All eight swimmers under the Cindy Ong Swimming Academy that made the trip to Langkawi finished on the podium, including Swedish swimmer Fredric Liljestroem.
Liljestroem won the men's masters 50-59 age group and was also the fastest overall swimmer over 4km, beating many other swimmers decades younger than him.
Cindy disclosed that Liljestroem had originally swam in the 8km category but was forced to abandon the race after his swimsuit tore early in the race. He then switched to the 4km race.
"About 1km into the 8km race, Fred's suit started to rip right down the centre. He did not want to end the race completely naked, so he called for the jetski to pick him up and bring him back to the beach," said Cindy when contacted in Langkawi today.
"As all the 8km swimmers had already gone far off, we asked the organisers whether it would be possible for Fred to swim in the 4km event (which started later).
"They organisers said yes, no problem at all. And there was also nothing in the rules that prohibited him from competing.
"Fred then swam and won the 4km category for both his age group and overall. Not long after, he began receiving hate messages on Facebook from one particular coach, who is a Malaysian.
"The coach was angry that he had switched to the 4km category. Fred defended himself by explaining what had happened in the 8km race and that the organisers allowed him to race in the 4km event.
"Fred even called the coach but continued to get scolded by the coach, which was unfair."
Cindy added that such behaviour hinders progress in the sport.
"We want our sport to progress and perform better. As I have said before, we (Malaysia) actually have a lot of potential in open water swimming.
"But we can never progress if there is resistance from certain people who claim that another person is taking away their podium spot.
"If your swimmers, who are much younger, can't beat a man in his 50s, that says a lot.
"I personally would have been excited to be able to swim alongside someone who is stronger than me and would challenge myself to be better.
"This was supposed to be a fun event to encourage more participation but the way this coach, who was not even in Langkawi, behaved shows extremely poor sportsmanship.
"We spoke to some other swimmers and apparently this was not the first time he has done something like this."