By JARROD POTTER
ALTHOUGH Brunei isn’t known as an overly aquatic country, it was the starting point for Casey TigerSharks swimmer Jayden Yong’s swimming odyssey.
Born in the south-east Asian country, Yong returned to Australia with competition swimming in his sights.
Moving over with his family in recent years, the 10-year-old swimming star has made Cranbourne North his home and Casey TigerSharks his springboard towards improving his strokes and skills in the pool.
The Hillcrest Christian College student’s talent earned him a place on the School Sport Victoria swimming team. He qualified for the team with an exceptional time of 46.03 in the 50-metre breaststroke also earning him silver in the event, but Yong is passionate about all the strokes and enjoys competing in the individual medley.
“I’m not sure I have one (a favourite stroke),” Yong said, “I like all of them.
“I like the individual medley because you can do all the strokes in it.”
This year’s effort is just reward for a couple of years of stellar school swimming, after making the qualifying times for last year’s team but being too young to actually go to the nationals.
“It was because last year I got into states and won two seconds, butterfly and freestyle, then I was too young to go,” Yong said.
He’s going to compete in all of his favourite strokes – with butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle on his itinerary as well as three relays.
Yong’s older brother Joshua is also a talented swimmer and has been listed as a junior talent representative in the Swimming Victoria Development squad for 2014/15.
The championships will be held this year in Melbourne from 21-26 July.
