Jeremy Kevin Mathews rewrites his own 400m Freestyle national record

Story by Erwin Wong/Red Sports. Photos by Marvin Lowe/Red Sports

Singapore Sports School, Friday, March 18, 2011 — 16-year-old swimmer Jeremy Kevin Mathews kept up his scorching form when he broke his own national 400 metres Freestyle record at the 42nd Singapore National Age Group Swimming Championships this morning.

Jeremy swam the eight laps of the pool in three minutes 58.80 seconds, breaking his own national and Under-17 records of 3:59.41 set at January’s Victorian Championships in Australia.

He then went on to break Pang Sheng Jun’s U-17 200m Individual Medley record of 2:07.92 with his 2:07.60 swim in the afternoon session, wiping out the latter’s name from the age-group record books in the four-stroke discipline.

Last night’s opening session of the championships also saw Jeremy break Sheng Jun’s U-17 400m IM record of 4:34.68 by 0.22 seconds. His meteoric rise to the top of the local swimming time lists and record books this year alone is nothing short of spectacular.

In addition to the three records he has broken in this meet so far, Jeremy also bettered the U-17 200m Backstroke record at the Victorian Championships, while clocking a blistering 200m Freestyle opening leg in the 4x200m relay.

Sheng Jun clocked a sensational time in the 400m Freestyle despite not swimming this event competitively in recent memory. He clocked a time of 3:59.32, which was quicker than Jeremy’s previous national record.

The 2011 South East Asian Games qualifying mark, benchmarked at the third-placed result at the 2009 Games, is 3:57.79.

Lionel Khoo also wrote his name into the record books when he bettered his own U-17 50m Breaststroke record of 28.93 seconds with his result of 28.87. In doing so, Lionel, who turns 16 next weekend, met the SEA Games qualifying mark of 29.03. This event was not swum at the 2009 Games, and the Singapore Swimming Association has set the third-best South East Asian result registered at the 2010 Asian Games as a qualifying mark.

Two other swimmers also met the Games qualifying mark. Amanda Lim posted a time of 25.83 seconds in the 50m Freestyle, her quickest since setting the national record in 2009. In the 50m Breaststroke, Samantha Yeo matched her personal best of 33.53 seconds. The qualifying marks were 26.22 and 33.74 respectively.

14-year-old Quah Zheng Wen, whose elder sister Ting Wen holds a plethora of national and age group swimming records, is well on his way towards similar success. He set four Under-14 records last year and has turned in new personal bests in the 400m IM (4:35.72), 400m Freestyle (4:07.01) and 100m Butterfly (57.56) at the Age Group championships so far. These times compare extremely favourably with local all time U-17 lists, despite Zheng Wen being younger than his peers in this age group.

The meet ends tomorrow.

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