The year 2018 is set to be a big year for Welson Sim, who is fully aware of expectations on him to perform at the highest level.
The Sarawakian swimmer enjoyed a stellar 2017, including breaking several national and SEA Games records and being crowned the men's Olympian of the Year by the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM).
This year, the 20-year-old will be part of Malaysia's swimming contingent, alongside Keith Lim, Chan Jie, Tern Jian Han and Caroline Chan, heading to Gold Coast, Australia, for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in April.
"After [performing well at] the SEA Games and becoming the Olympian of the Year, there are more media and people looking at me and interested in how I will perform at the Commonwealth Games as well as the Asian Games," he told StadiumAstro.com.
"It is a bit of pressure, but it is not a bad thing because it means people believe in me and my ability."
In his last Commonwealth appearance in Scotland four years ago, he clocked 3:59.37 and failed to qualify from his 400m freestyle heat.
Since then, Sim shaved his time down to 3:51.57 at the 2016 Summer Olympics before achieving a new SEA Games record of 3:50.26 last year.
Despite being happy with his time improvement, he admitted it would not be easy to emerge victorious at Gold Coast 2018.
"In my events, there are a lot of good swimmers like Mack Horton [Rio 2016 gold medallist] and others from Australia, United Kingdom and South Africa, who are faster than me," he said.
"There is no special training in swimming where you can immediately improve your time by a few seconds.
"I go to gym and do extra training in the morning of our rest days, so hopefully it can help."
At the same time, Sim hinted he has his eye on the 2018 Asian Games, which will be held in Indonesia later this year.
"My ultimate goal this year is to win a medal at the Asian Games," he added.
"I know it is going to be really hard, but anything can happen during the tournament, so I just need to train hard and go all out."
Seng Foo Lee
Mon Feb 19 2018
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