NAYPYIDAW — For a second straight day, the pair of Stephenie Chen and Suzanne Seah struck gold at the 27th SEA Games, helping their team equal the two-gold medal haul achieved at the last edition in Indonesia.

Chen and Seah successfully defended their K2 200m gold to add to the K2 500m win from Thursday, making them the nation’s most successful kayakers in recent times.

Overall, the Singapore kayak team won six medals — two of each colour — from the 10 events they entered.

Apart from the K2 success, Mervyn Toh won silver in the men’s K1 200m event yesterday while the women’s K4 200m team won bronze at the Ngalaik Dam.

Conditions at the canoe-kayak venue were a total contrast from the day before, with still waters and nary a wisp of wind. Taking off from Lane 4, Chen and Seah built on a fine start and produced a powerful finish to hit the line in 40.864 sec, ahead of Myanmar (41.260s) and Vietnam (41.764s).

Also unlike the day before, there were no tears this time for the duo, who have surely established themselves as the region’s leading pair — their four outings in the K2 200m and 500m over two SEA Games yielding three gold medals and a silver.

For Seah, 23, it was the matter of turning the pressure of defending their K2 200m crown into desire.

“When the desire is so strong, you just go all out. It was our last K2 set of the year so there was no holding back,” she said.

Chen, who turns 22 on Christmas Day, said it was not about proving themselves, but rather “to prove that Singapore are here as medal contenders”. She also dedicated the win to her 20-year-old sister Sarah, who had earlier come fifth in the K1 200m race.

The Chen sisters, with Geraldine Lee and Annabelle Ng, subsequently crewed the K4 200m boat that finished third behind Myanmar and Thailand, a result described by coach Balazs Babella as “promising”.

So too the silver medal from Toh, who took a break from his undergraduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States to compete at these Games, and finished 0.416s behind Thailand’s Kasemsit Borriboonwasin with Nguyen Thanh Quang of Vietnam in third.

“I’m grateful that the water was quite still today,” said Toh, 21.

“If it was choppier, I would have been at a disadvantage as I am smaller than the other competitors.”

Babella contends his team could have done better had they been fresher. He said: “It has been a very long year for us, with the South-east Asian and Asian Championships, and I think the paddlers were mentally and physically not as sharp.

“Still, they did well as kayak has become extremely competitive, as these Games have shown. The results here are a good stepping stone for next year’s Asian Games.”