By Erwin Wong
Lynette Lim breaks her own 1500m Freestyle record by more than 20 seconds. (Photo © Les Tan/Red Sports file photo)
Rome, Monday, July 27, 2009 - Lynette Lim reinforced her credentials as Singapore's premier distance swimmer when she clocked a time of 16:41.49s in the grueling 1500m Freestyle to shatter her own national record by more than 20 seconds on Day 2 of the 13th FINA World Swimming Championships.
The 17 years old's performance in this non-Olympic event placed her 25th in a field of 32, and is the second fastest performance by a Singaporean this year for either gender in this event. Her previous mark was 17:02.07s and stood for nearly 2 years, but was always going to fall as Lynette put in lap after consistent lap of 33+, and found enough left in her tank to finish the last 100m strongly with a 63.68s.
Lynette also currently holds the national record in the 800m Freestyle, and the 400m Freestyle until yesterday when Quah Ting Wen bettered her mark.
There were 4 other events in the morning heats, and it was a successful outing for both Roanne Ho and Cheryl Lim as they clocked personal bests in the women's 100m Breaststroke. They finished in 1:12.11s and 1:15.63s respectively.
In the women's 100m Backstroke, Hwa Chong International student Shana Lim finished in 1:03.72s, 0.3s outside her own Under-17 record set in March this year. Lynette Ng clocked a time of 1:05.65s.
Joshua Lim set a personal best of 1:52.99s in the men's 200m Freestyle, while Marcus Cheah was further behind in 1:57.01s. In the men's 100m Backstroke, Rainer Ng once again clocked a 58+, but his 58.57s finish failed to better his personal best and national Under-17 record of 58.19s set in March.
That put the morning heats of the second day of swimming action to bed, with world records falling like bricks by the wayside. Team Singapore will be represented by the following tomorrow: National record holder Parker Lam and Ng Jia Hao (men's 50m Breaststroke), Rainer Ng and Nicholas Sim (men's 200m Butterfly), Pang Sheng Jun and Clement Lim (men's 800m Freestyle), and national record holder Quah Ting Wen and Amanda Lim (women's 200m Freestyle).
hi yvonne,
im sorry you did not find anything on the inter-primary swimming meet on this site. im sure others were disappointed as well. maybe at next year’s meet, you could write something about the championships. everyone would be grateful.
that said, im sure you were thrilled to bits at the high level of performance there. with samantha yeo breaking joscelin’s under 14 100m breaststroke record and garret tan’s 7 new records (6 individual, 1 team), among many other new marks.
ice: thanks for your kind words, as well as your feedback.
i read through the previous 3 stories and there was only 1 stark mention that our swimmers did not qualify. that was on day 1 when tao li was swimming the event which ranked her the top few in the world last year, and thus was our best hope.
she did not advance, and neither did the others, so i summed it up that one time.
i dont mean to write anything to make our swimmers seem like failures. in fact i think they are doing great and flying our national flag proudly, record/personal best or not.
@ice
Thanks for your feedback.
I can vouch for Erwin “Statsman” Wong that when he writes that they did not make the finals, it’s not to put the swimmers down. It’s just to inform.
If we don’t mention that, the picture would be incomplete and some will be left wondering if they made the final.
We are supportive of our Singapore athletes and that’s why Erwin has written this post.
@ Yvonne,
Wow, the same comment left on two different posts. You really have a chip on your shoulder.
I appreciate RedSports’ coverage of our Singaporean swimmers in Rome. It is so much better than the newspapers, which somehow decided that a national record breaking swim is only worthy of 1 single paragraph.
However, can I please implore the reporters to stop mentioning that our swimmers did not make the finals of a particular event. Other than Tao Li, absolutely none of our swimmers are expected to make the finals anyway, not even the Olympians Quah Ting Wen and Lynette Lim. So why add that in and make our swimmers seem like failures? This is also the case in the mainstream media. Instead, can we just focus on the fact that they have broken the National Records and Personal Bests, which is what their main targets are.
ps: another NR went down today, Parker Lam in the 50 Breast
Whatever happened to coverage of Inter-Primary Swimming Championships? RedSports reporters too busy at the World Swimming Championships in Rome? This happened in our own backyard – the Singapore Sports School – last week. Not a peep about the meet. I am very disappointed…
@yvonne: Red Sports is a reader-generated, volunteer-driven site. You send it, we post it.
There are no full-time Red Sports reporters.
If you wish to write a story about the inter-primary swimming championships, please do so and we’ll happily post it up for you.
I take care of this site and have to do other things to bring in the money so that this site can be free for readers.
No volunteer is in Rome, obviously. There’s something called the internet.