Youth Olympic Swimming: Disappointing morning in the pool for Singapore

Story by Koh Yizhe/Red Sports and Ng Enna/Red Sports. Photos by Ng Cheng Cong/Red Sports

Singapore Sports School, Friday, August 20, 2010 — None of our swimmers qualified for evening finals on the last day of the Youth Olympic Games swimming competition.

National record holder, Rainer Ng, was back in action after claiming the silver medal for Singapore in the 50m Backstroke and was hoping for a repeat of his brilliant performance. However, he only managed a time of 2:06.74 for an 11th-place finish out of 19 in the 200m Backstroke heats.

Although he was first off the blocks, he soon fell behind his stronger competitors and eventually finished fourth in his heat.

“It was alright,” said Rainer after his race. “I mean going into the race, I was hoping to probably get into the final and do a good time but I think a bit of the fatigue started to set in because this competition is quite a long competition – 6 days – and on the last day, my fitness probably wasn’t up to what it was before the competition. I think that’s something I can work on – maintaining my fitness throughout long period of competitions.”

When asked if anything went wrong in the race, he analyzed: “For me, off every wall, I felt really weak and then for the first 50m, I probably took it a bit too easy. When I start trying to accelerate towards the end, it was probably a bit too late. I need to learn how to go out faster – but not all out – so that I can maintain my pace throughout the whole 200.”

The Raffles Institution student returned to the pool for the mixed 4×100 medley relay and teamed up with Cheryl Lim, Pang Sheng Jun and Adeline Winata. Amanda Lim, who will be Singapore’s only representative in the evening after qualifying for the 50m freestyle final, chose not to race in this event to concentrate on the final.

Although Singapore’s only silver medallist at these Games gave Singapore a brilliant start, finishing second behind Germany in 57.93 seconds in the backstroke leg, Cheryl Lim was unable to maintain Singapore’s position and fell to fifth. Pang Sheng Jun, however, made up plenty of ground in the butterfly leg and made the changeover in third place. Despite her efforts, Adeline was not able to keep up her stronger opponents at bay and Singapore eventually finished fifth with a time of 4:08.94.

Their time was only enough for a 12th-placed finish in a field of 16 countries.

Amanda’s replacement, Adeline, said: “I enjoyed the race because I was swimming against the guys so it was a different thing all together.”

When asked why Amanda didn’t swim at this event, coach David Lim said: “There were mainly two reasons. One, she has her final later today and two, with so many teams in this event, the chances for Singapore were slim.”

Teammate Cheryl Lim added: “She’s resting for 50m. It was a joint decision between her and the coaches. The coaches choose what’s best for the team because her event tonight is a very important event for Singapore so we definitely hope that she can do well.”

Earlier, Cheryl also swam in the 200m Breaststroke. She finished sixth in her heat and 14th overall to crash out in the qualifying stage. She also failed to better her personal best of 2:34.73 and managed a time of 2:40.23, close to 10 seconds behind top qualifier Emily Selig of Australia.

“No, I am actually quite upset about it,” said the Raffles Girls’ School student when asked if she was satisfied with her time. “I think I didn’t get “excited” enough for it. It kind of made me unable to speed up and get into the rhythm of my strokes. I’m not really that happy with my time because I didn’t expect to be that slow and not up to my standards.”

She then went on to explain that although she didn’t expect to progress to the final, she didn’t expect to “do such a slow time either”.

In the 400m freestyle heats, Singapore’s Chriselle Koh had a disappointing race. She finished in 4:34.28, which is nowhere close to her personal best of 4:28.06, and it only allowed her to finish 22nd out of 26 swimmers.

For Singapore fixtures and results, go to our 2010 YOG fixtures page