Toddler swims her way into record books

KUALA LUMPUR: A 23-month old toddler smashed a swimming record for babies in The Malaysia Book of Records nearly four times over in Mont Kiara yesterday.
The toddler, Kiara Belle Kit, managed to swim 199.35m in 25 minutes and 38 seconds far surpassing the previous record of 50m set by a 2 and a half-year old girl in 2003.
However, it was no walk in the park for Kiara as a lacklustre start nearly devolved into a botched attempt and her parents, Cindy Ong and Tang Kit, had to bring in Toby the rabbit as a backup plan.
Cindy said her daughter was slowing down by the 100m mark but the sight of Toby, a family friend's pet and her favourite rabbit, reinvigorated the child.
Amusingly, two passers-by with their poodle dogs also stopped to cheer for Kiara, an act by strangers that no doubt gave Kiara a further boost due to her love of animals.
"She developed her second-wind when she saw the rabbit, the toys we were using (as motivation) did not work as well," said Tang, who is a network engineering consultant for a US-based tech company.
It is also hardly surprising that Kiara managed to trounce the record as her mother Cindy was a former Malaysian national athlete who qualified for the 2004 Olympics in Athens and won six gold medals in the 2004 Sukma, breaking several national records in the process.
Cindy's brother Allen Ong was also a national swimmer who participated in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2004 Athens Olympics, while their aunt Ong Mei Lin was Malaysia's first woman Olympian swimmer who participated in the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Cindy, now a swimming instructor specialising in teaching children, said Kiara only trained sporadically since she was 11 months old as she is still a small child and holding down a schedule will be immensely difficult.
However, the parents said they do not have any plans of grooming Kiara into an athlete as they do not want to impose anything on her.
"We prefer to just teach her how to swim, then let her decide for herself if she wants to take it a step further when she is grown up," Tang said.