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By Jocy Su
Campus Reporter
Non-professional swimmer Tseng Yu-chieh (曾璵潔), a senior of Music Department, and Olympic swimmer Nieh Pin-chieh (聶品潔), a sophomore of Physical Education Department, were the two highlighted athletes by the pool, as they were the fastest women among non-professional swimmers and professional counterparts.
Tseng participated in the non-professional female 50m freestyle and won the championship, as she finished 50 meters within 37.52 seconds. She was surprised about her own performances because she said it did not start with good sign during the match-up.
"My goggles immediately went off when I dived into the water,” Tseng said. “I could only continue and swim with my eyes opened in the water.”
The music student said that she did not really care about the result because she simply joined to enjoy the feeling of the game.
"This is my last year on the campus. I want to enjoy the game and have some fun in the pool,” she said.
Nieh was the champion for the 50m freestyle on the professional swimmers’ side. As a member of the nation’s swimming team for the Olympics, Nieh finished her 50 meters within 29.86 seconds.
She is still the record holder of National Taiwan Normal University’s (NYNU) female 50m freestyle – 26.52 seconds.
For the 2008 University Water Sports Day, freestyle, breaststroke backstroke and butterfly match-ups were held while freestyle relay and medley relay were also held for group swimmers, professional and non-professional, from 9am to 5pm.
Games for professional swimmers were only opened to sports-related major students to maintain certain equal opportunities for non-professional swimmers.
NTNU swimming coach Wang Ning (王甯) emphasized the importance of the University Sports Day, which is annual, for NTNU.
"It is a good chance to inspire more potential swimmers or encourage those remaining swimmers to dedicate themselves more to this activity,” Wang said.
English major freshman and a member of NTNU’s non-professional swimming team Lin Wei-en’s (林維恩) comments reflected Wang’s, when she was disappointed about the amount of the audiences while most athletes have worked so hard to present their best performances during the games but only a few audiences would come and applaud.
"It seems to me that my fellow NTNU students are not fond of this kind of activity,” she said.
