Story by REDintern Nicole Lum and Erwin Wong/Red Sports. Photos by Lim Yong Teck, Clara Yuan and Matthew Lau/Red Sports
Rachel Marjorie Tseng in action during the women’s 800m freestyle final. Rachel set a new personal best and meet record for 15-17 year olds with a timing of 8:53.14. She finished fifth in this event at the last SEA Games in December 2013, and will take to the same pool in this event at the OCBC Aquatic Centre when the Games come to Singapore in June this year. (Photo 1 © Lim Yong Teck/Red Sports)
OCBC Aquatic Centre, Tuesday, March 17, 2015 — Rachel Marjorie Tseng chalked up yet another sub-9 minute swim in the women’s 800m freestyle when she clocked a time of 8 minutes 53.14 seconds at the Singapura Finance 46th Singapore National Age Group (SNAG) Swimming Championships.
It was a new personal best (PB) time, and it also broke her own meet record of 9:04.02 for the 15-17 year olds.
When asked how she felt about her race, Rachel said that she was happy with the timing, which bettered her previous PB of 8:54.19. “However, I feel that I can still improve on my swim,” she added.
17-year-old Rachel, along with Chloe Wang who clocked 9:07.50, will be nominated for this event at the 28th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in June. The SEA Games selection policy stipulated by the Singapore Swimming Association states that the fastest two swimmers of each individual event during the qualifying window will be selected for the Games. The qualifying window is from 21 September 2014 to 22 March 2015.
Rachel, who is the second fastest local swimmer of all time in the 800m freestyle, is already looking to future races.
“I’m excited for the event. Presently, I’m training under Gary Tan and national head coach Sergio Lopez, and I’ve improved a lot in training and competitions under their care. Sergio has been planning the preparation for the National training squad, especially the Spanish Open that we’ll be competing in next week alongside world-class athletes,” she explains.
Rachel has six more events to go in the SNAG Swimming Championships. She will be competing in the 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m and 1500m freestyle, as well as the 100m butterfly.
Genevieve Lye rewrote the meet record for 13-14 year olds with a time of 9:31.33, while Gan Ching Hwee did likewise in the 8-12 year olds, clocking 9:36.31. The latter set a 400m freestyle meet record in the category of 12 year olds at the SNAG Junior meet on Saturday.
14-year-old Quah Jing Wen will be heading for her first major Games, after winning the women’s 400m individual medley super final in a personal best time of 5:03.45.
She is the top SEA Games qualifier in this event. America-based Tan Jing-E will take the other spot by virtue of her 5:05.62 result at the Asian Games in September 2014.
Jing Wen first broke the meet record of 5:14.36 for 15-17 year olds with her morning swim of 5:10.59, before rewriting the mark in the evening,
For more details of the event, go to: www.facebook.com/swimsnag
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