Quah Zheng Wen competing in the 200m Individual Medley which he eventually won. (Photo 1 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
Singapore Sports School, Thursday, June 14, 2012 — Quah Zheng Wen rewrote the men’s National 200m Individual Medley record when he came in with a time of 2 minutes 3.79 seconds on Day Two of the 1st South-east Asian (SEA) Swimming Championships.
Zheng Wen won his second gold medal of the championships, shaving 0.61s off his own national record set last month at the 55th Malaysian Open. He also met the Olympic ‘B’ Timing of 2:04.38 together with compatriot Jeremy Kevin Mathews, who was second in 2:04.09.
Zheng Wen led for all four laps, and unlike the previous day where he had a lacklustre performance, never looked like slipping up. The 15-year-old got off to a blistering start and turned at the wall in 25.93 seconds, his fastest 50m Butterfly time ever. Zheng Wen held a lead of over two seconds at the halfway mark, but Jeremy reeled him in after a strong breaststroke leg. The two were neck-and-neck in the last lap, but Zheng Wen powered ahead to win by three-tenths of a second.
Zheng Wen shared: “I did a lot better today. I had more rest [but] I’m still recovering from flu so I’m not in tip-top condition yet. I wasn’t expecting much after yesterday, but I put it behind me [and] focused on swimming my best, getting in the game, and getting race experience.”
He added: “I think the strong competition definitely helped push me further. Swimming against the talented foreigners in this competition pushed me to do better.”
Zheng Wen has now made the Olympic ‘B’ qualifying mark in four different events. He had earlier gone under the mark in the 200m backstroke, 200m butterfly and 400m IM. It was the seventh time he has broken a national open mark, and the 18th time he has bettered a national under-17 record.
National 200m IM record progression
Joshua Lim 2:05.33 11 Dec 2009
Joseph Schooling 2:05.07 26 Jun 2011
Joseph Schooling 2:04.85 17 Nov 2011
Jeremy Kevin Mathews 2:04.58 12 Apr 2012
Quah Zheng Wen 2:04.40 4 May 2012
Quah Zheng Wen 2:03.79 14 Jun 2012
Zheng Wen starts his race. (Photo 2 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
[…] the SEA Swimming Championships in June 2012, Zheng Wen won three golds, and in doing so, he set a new national record in the 200m individual medley […]