Singapore Sports School, Tuesday, August 17, 2010 — 18-year-old Rainer Ng set a new national record in the Men’s 50m backstroke when he won his semi-final with a time of 26.37 seconds.

That bettered his previous national mark of 26.59 set at April’s National Schools meet.

Rainer qualified second overall for tomorrow evening’s final, and places Singapore in good stead for their third medal of the Youth Olympic Games.

In other evening events, Clement Lim replicated his 14th placing in the Men’s 50m freestyle heats with a similar finish in the semi-finals. He also very nearly clocked the same time of 23.86 seconds, registering a 23.87 in the semi-finals.

Rainer and Clement then put in another good shift when they combined with Arren Quek and Pang Sheng Jun to finish a commendable seventh place in the Men’s 4x100m freestyle relay final. The quartet clocked 3 minutes 27.46 seconds, bettering their heat time of 3:28.66.

Amanda Lim also improved on her morning’s performance. She swam a 29.34 seconds in the Women’s 50m butterfly semi-finals, 0.14 seconds faster than her heat time.