Story by Iman Hashim and Teo Yun Teng/Red Sports. Photos by Jerald Ang and Soh Jun Wei/Red Sports

Lionel Khoo surfacing during his 100m breaststroke 15 and over 'A' finals at the 47th Singapore National Age Group Swimming Championships. He finished second in the 18 and over group with a timing of 1:02.26. This bests a 7-year national open record set by Parker Lam in 2009. (Photo © Soh Jun Wei/Red Sports)

Lionel Khoo surfacing during his 100m breaststroke 15 and over ‘A’ finals at the 47th Singapore National Age Group Swimming Championships. He finished second in the 18 and over group with a timing of 1:02.26. This bests a 7-year national open record set by Parker Lam in 2009. (Photo 1 © Soh Jun Wei/Red Sports)

OCBC Aquatic Centre, Friday, March 18, 2016 — National swimmer Lionel Khoo, 20, finally erased the 100 metres breaststroke national open record on the third day for seniors at the Singapura Finance 47th Singapore National Age Group (SNAG) Swimming Championships.

The Swimfast Aquatic Club (SAC) representative, who is turning 21 at the end of the month, clocked 1 minute 2.26 seconds to go under the 1:02.65 mark set by Parker Lam, which had stood since November 26, 2009.

His timing is also a meet record for the event in the 18-years-and-over category.

In the process, the breaststroke specialist met the ‘B’ qualifying mark of 1:02.69 for the Rio Olympic Games. It is the first event where he has met the Olympic ‘B’ cut.

He also holds the current 200m breaststroke national record of 2:16.66 swum in the 2015 South-east Asian (SEA) Games.

Lionel attributed his recent good form to training with Kevin Cordes, the American swimmer who finished first in his race. Kevin was the American National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) 2013 Swimmer of the Year, and has been training together with the Singapore National Team swimmers under head coach Sergio Lopez since last year.

Lionel explained, “I think my backhand spin was really good, because I have been training with Kevin for awhile now. I know how he swims and through training experience with him, I know I could keep up with him till the end. I think I could have gone out a little faster, as my backhand spin was pretty fast for the time I did. If I had a better balance I could have gone faster for the front 50 (metres).”

Lionel seemed pretty relieved to have gotten back to his best form, exclaiming, “Seeing that it has been four years since I did a (personal) best time, I’m happy that at least I’m on the right track. I think I’m fitter than before, stronger than before, so now I just need to find the right technique. To me, at least I have secured a chance for the call-out (to represent Singapore in Rio) – it feels good and I’m going to work harder; hopefully I will get closer to the ‘A’ time.”

Apart from Lionel’s feat, three other men’s meet records fell in the same evening.

Jonathan Tan, 14, of Elite Swim Club (ESC) claimed his third meet record of the championships when he finished the 200m freestyle in a blistering 1:55.94, erasing Darren Chua’s previous mark of 1:56.21 set in 2014. A day earlier, he had set new meet records in the 50m butterfly and 400m freestyle for the 13-14 years old age group.

On his latest eye-catching performance, the Secondary Two student from Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) [ACS(I)] remarked, “The swim was quite good, I think I paced well through the whole 200m. I would like to break more records but a record is always a bonus to me. Getting a PB is the most important thing.”

Fellow ACS(I) schoolmate Francis Fong, 16, of SAC rewrote his own 50m backstroke meet record twice in the day as he clocked 26.73s in the morning heats, then lowered it further to 26.52s in the evening final.

Both timings went under his previous meet mark (15-17 years old category) of 26.95s set at last year’s edition.

Despite dipping below the mark twice, Francis claimed that it was far from his expectations. “I was actually quite surprised; I didn’t expect to swim my personal best in the morning as morning swims are usually quite hard, and I was even more surprised when I broke my record again at night,” he commented.

Francis sounded optimistic about the near future, as he sets his sights on the national under-17 record of 26.15s for the event, which was set by Quah Zheng Wen three years ago. “I’m pretty confident (of hitting the record one day), but I would definitely need to put in the effort,” he added.

Meanwhile, Quah Zheng Wen dipped under the Olympic ‘B’ timings for the 200m freestyle and 200m butterfly, finishing in 1:50.43 and 2:00.10 respectively. This was not the first time that Zheng Wen had met the ‘B’ timing for the 200m freestyle, while he has in fact already met the Olympic ‘A’ cut for the butterfly event with a 1:56.26 swim in the FINA World Cup last year.

Zheng Wen’s 1:59.89 clocked in the 200m butterfly heats, though, rewrote his own meet record set at last year’s championships.

In the 200m freestyle race, while Zheng Wen and Danny Yeo (1:50.99) finished as the top two local swimmers – and both hitting the Olympic ‘B’ mark – Malaysian Welson Sim turned heads again as he finished first in an incredible 1:47.67, booking his spot in this year’s Rio Olympics.

A day earlier, the 19-year-old up-and-coming regional swim star also met the Olympic ‘A’ qualifying time for the 400m freestyle.

The SNAG championships will resume on Saturday, March 19 at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.

Boys/Men Results – Seniors Day 3

Boys 13-14 200m Freestyle
1st Jonathan Tan — 1:55.94 (Meet Record)
2nd Glen Lim Jun Wei — 1:57.45
3rd Tokuma Nishino (JPN) — 2:00.27
5th Collin Schuster — 2:05.17

Men 15-17 200m Freestyle
1st Darren Chua — 1:53.05
2nd Ikuta Fujiwara (JPN) — 1:54.75
3rd Bryant Low — 1:55.81

Men 18 & Over 200m Freestyle
1st Welson Sim (MAS) — 1:47.67
2nd Quah Zheng Wen — 1:50.43
3rd An Ting Yao (TPE) — 1:50.83
4th Danny Yeo Kai Quan — 1:50.99

Boys 13-14 50m Backstroke
1st Mikkel Lee — 28.71 seconds
2nd Leonard Ong — 29.58
3rd Collin Schuster — 29.82

Men 15-17 50m Backstroke
1st Francis Fong Jia Yi — 26.52 seconds (Meet Record)
2nd Ko Nagano (JPN) — 27.30
3rd Kohtaroh Horiai (JPN) — 27.32
4th Ethan Ong Wei Zhen — 27.86

Men 18 & Over 50m Backstroke
1st Tullius Rexford (USA) — 26.24 seconds
2nd Chang Kuo Chi (TPE) — 26.44
3rd Malcolm Low Wei Yang — 27.21
4th Kevin Ong Jit Eng — 27.31

Boys 13-14 100m Breaststroke
1st Leow Li Shen — 1:11.19
2nd Russell Ngoo Jia Hao — 1:12.53
3rd Malcolm Oh Zhao Hui — 1:12.55

Men 15-17 100m Breaststroke
1st Takumi Asai (JPN) — 1:04.50
2nd Samuel Khoo — 1:04.68
3rd Tomohiro Shimono (JPN) — 1:04.69
4th Brilliant Chua — 1:05.41

Men 18 & Over 100m Breaststroke
1st Kevin Cordes (USA) — 1:01.40
2nd Lionel Khoo Chien Yin — 1:02.26 (National Open Record, Meet Record)
3rd Hsu Han Peng (TPE) — 1:03.32
6th Kenneth Lim Duan Le — 1:05.33

Boys 13-14 200m Butterfly
1st Rhys Ng Jun Kai — 2:08.37
2nd Albertus Andika Bangun (INA) — 2:18.55
3rd Damian Ho — 2:19.08
4th Dylan Seah Wu Hng — 2:20.77

Men 15-17 200m Butterfly
1st Kai Yamamoto (JPN) — 2:02.01
2nd Dylan Koo Longhai — 2:03.37
3rd Donovan Lee Chuen Jin — 2:03.95
5th Ong Jung Yi — 2:09.78

Men 18 & Over 200m Butterfly
1st Quah Zheng Wen — 2:00.10 (Final), 1:59.89 (Heats) (Meet Record)
2nd Chou Wei Liang (TPE) — 2:00.59
3rd Wen Ren Hao (TPE) — 2:02.24
5th Oh Yao Jie — 2:08.61

More photos next page