Singapore Sports School, Tuesday, June 21, 2011 — Last year’s Sixth Singapore National Swimming Championships proved to be the breakout meet for Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) student Quah Zheng Wen, as he swam his way to four national under-14 records in the 50, 100 and 200 metres Backstroke as well as the 200m Butterfly.
In the evening finals of the first day of this year’s edition of the national championships, Zheng Wen, still at the tender age of 14, broke the national under-17 record in the 400m Individual Medley. His swim of four minutes 32.49 seconds bettered the three-month old record of 4:34.46 set by Jeremy Kevin Mathews. The new record time was also inside the ‘B’ qualification mark for November’s South-East Asian (SEA) Games.
This is the second U-17 record that Zheng Wen has broken. The first was the 1500m Freestyle which he set at the National Age Group meet in March, although it was bettered by Teo Zhen Ren who swam in the very next race.
Zheng Wen will be swimming the 200m and 1500m Freestyle, 50m and 200m Backstroke, 200m Butterfly and 200m IM in the meet.
Another men’s national under-17 record was set today, in the 50m Butterfly. The record stood at 25.57 seconds set by Dzulhaili Mohd Kamal at last year’s national meet and Joseph Schooling, who turned 16 last Thursday, broke it twice. He swam a 25.36 in the morning heats and improved it to 25.15 in the evening.
The latter performance just matched the SEA Games ‘A’ qualifying mark, while two other swimmers, Jerome Teo (25.25s) and Dzulhaili (25.52s), met the ‘B’ mark.
Asian Games gold medallist Tao Li swam a fast time of 58.95 in the women’s 100m Butterfly final. It is the 26th fastest time in the world this year, and also qualified her for next month’s World Championships in Shanghai.
Mylene Ong won the women’s 200m Freestyle final in a personal best time of 2:03.44. This was inside the SEA Games ‘A’ qualifying mark of 2:03.90. Amanda Lim was second in 2:03.54, but seven-time SEA Games gold medalist Quah Ting Wen finished third, just a hundredth of a second from the qualifying mark.
The meet continues tomorrow and will end on Sunday.
I agree, and the SSA does not seem to be doing anything to rectify the situation. Already, there were signs last year at Asiad that our overseas based swimmers weren’t doing well, and yet it’s still the same old story now.
Look at the times the Californian girls are swimming now compared to 2009 (even taking into account the plastic suits then) and something is clearly wrong
Time and again, our promising young swimmers who pursue further studies in the US suffered a loss in form and subsequently retired from competitive swimming altogether.
This year’s SEA Games might see no individual races by 2009 gold medallists Quah Ting Wen and/or Lynette Lim, given the times they are posting. Worst, one of them might not even make the team.
This 200 Free result alone will mean that defending gold medalist in the 200 Free, Ting Wen, will not get to defend her title