Story by Iman Hashim and Chan Hua Zheng/Red Sports. Photos by Chua Kai Yun and Soh Jun Wei/Red Sports

Darren Chua receives the Most Valuable Swimmer award at the 47th Singapore National Age Group Swimming Championships. He clinched three individual golds. (Photo © Soh Jun Wei/Red Sports)

Darren Chua receives the Most Valuable Swimmer award at the 47th Singapore National Age Group Swimming Championships. He clinched three individual golds. (Photo 1 © Soh Jun Wei/Red Sports)

OCBC Aquatic Centre, Sunday, March 20, 2016 — Four more men’s meet records fell as the Singapura Finance 47th Singapore National Age Group (SNAG) Swimming Championships came to a close.

Jonathan Tan, 14, of Elite Swim Club (ESC) once again blitzed the pool among 13-14 year olds, finishing almost three seconds ahead of his nearest competitor in the 100 metres freestyle. He set a new meet record of 52.48 seconds, erasing Darren Chua’s previous mark of 52.69s set in 2014.

His timing also meant that he finally met an ‘A’ qualifying mark for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships, as it went under the stipulated mark of 52.83s for this event. However, the qualification guidelines published by the Singapore Swimming Association state that the two swimmers with the fastest ‘A’ cuts in each individual event will gain automatic berths.

The two fastest are Darren Lim (50.29s) and his younger namesake, Darren Chua (50.82s). Jonathan, along with Dylan Koo (52.13s), are still in line to swim the 4x100m freestyle relay at the Pan Pacific meet that will be held this August in Maui, Hawaii. The final make-up of the team will be confirmed after June’s National Championships.

Overall, Jonathan ended the championships with an impressive haul of six individual golds – in the 50m and 100m butterfly, and the 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle events. More impressively, he set new meet records in five of these events, with the 100m butterfly being the only exception. He also finished with a silver in the 1500m freestyle.

For his amazing performances in the pool, the Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) [ACS(I)] student was duly named the Most Valuable Swimmer in the 13-14 years old Boys category.

Jonathan was clearly elated with the recognition, saying, “I feel happy that I could actually reach this level, and I’m quite excited to carry on (this level of performance in the near future). But most importantly, I am very grateful to my coaches and family for their support – I think that was the thing that drove me on from the first day to the last day of SNAG.”

Moving forward, Jonathan has set some goals for himself. “For this year, my goal is to do well in the Pan Pacific meet and maybe get a few more personal bests. But my ultimate goal in my swimming career is to make it to the 2020 Olympics,” he remarked.

Meanwhile, the Most Valuable Swimmer honours for 15-17 year olds went to Jonathan’s ACS(I) schoolmate Darren Chua.

The Swimfast Aquatic Club (SAC) representative, who just turned 16, had a birthday to remember as he set a new meet record in the 100m freestyle. He broke Darren Lim’s 2014 mark of 51.50s with a 51.26s swim in the morning heats, then lowered it further to an eye-catching 50.82s in the final.

He became only the sixth local swimmer to swim this event below 51 seconds, and is now the youngest swimmer to first swim a sub-51s timing. Darren Lim was 16 years and 2 months old when he first went below 51 seconds.

His timing also met the ‘A’ cut for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships. It’s the fourth event where he had swum a personal best and met the Junior Pan Pacific ‘A’ mark in the process – the other three being the 200m individual medley, 200m freestyle and 400m freestyle. He claimed the gold in three of these four events for the 15-17 years old category, barring the 400m freestyle.

Jonathan Tan and Darren Chua then later teamed up with Darren Lim and Dylan Koo in the 4x100m freestyle relay, finishing first in 3:28.55.

Francis Fong, 16, also of ACS(I) and representing SAC, rewrote his own 100m backstroke meet record of 57.45s set last year, when he swam 56.78s in the morning heats. He then finished in a slower 56.91s in the final, but it was enough for him to claim the gold in the 15-17 years old category. His timing also gives him automatic qualification for the Junior Pan Pacific meet, and puts him within sight of Quah Zheng Wen’s national under-17 mark of 56.60s.

It was the backstroke specialist’s second meet record of the championships, after he also rewrote his own mark in the 50m backstroke two days earlier.

The remaining meet record of the day was set by Zheng Wen, 19, also in the 100m backstroke. He finished the final in 54.76s, but his 54.56s clocked in the heats goes into the record books, lowering his own previous mark of 55.86s swum in last year’s edition.

Zheng Wen’s timing met the Olympic ‘B’ mark, though he has already met the ‘A’ cut in the event with a 54.03s swim during last year’s FINA World Cup.

Another notable result of the day was Darren Lim’s 50.33s and 50.34s clocked in the 100m freestyle heats and final respectively, which meant he has met the Olympic ‘B’ qualifying time of 50.70s in the event for the first time. He also led off the freestyle relay with a 50.29s split. All three swims easily bettered his pre-championships PB of 50.62s.

Earlier in the day, 12-year-old Ephraim Tan won his 13th gold of the championships when he finished the 800m freestyle for 11-12 year olds in a meet record 9:37.32. Last week, he had won the Most Valuable Swimmer award for junior boys.

In total, this year’s championships saw four junior boys’ and a whopping 20 men’s meet records broken. At the same time, three new men’s national marks were set – Lionel Khoo’s national open record in the 100m breaststroke and Glen Lim’s under-14 records in the 400m and 1500m freestyle.

At these championships, meet record breakers won $200 while national record breakers won $500. In all, $30,700 was presented by title sponsor Singapura Finance to the Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) for the new meet and national records.

Boys/Men Results – Seniors Day 5

Boys 11-12 800m Freestyle
1st Ephraim Tan — 9:37.32 (Meet Record)
2nd Christian Low Tze Hang — 9:52.26
3rd Terence Ong Yi Hao — 10:05.35

Boys 13-14 100m Freestyle
1st Jonathan Tan — 52.48 seconds (Meet Record)
2nd Tokuma Nishino (JPN) — 55.09
3rd Naoki Kon (JPN) — 55.41
4th Luke Tan — 56.56
5th Collin Schuster — 57.71

Men 15-17 100m Freestyle
1st Darren Chua — 50.82 seconds (Meet Record)
2nd Kohtaroh Horiai (JPN) — 51.73
3rd Dylan Koo Longhai — 52.13
6th Koh Liang Jun — 53.89

Men 18 & Over 100m Freestyle
1st Darren Lim — 50.34 seconds
2nd Welson Sim (MAS) — 50.40
3rd Quah Zheng Wen — 50.55
3rd Wang Yu Lian (TPE) — 50.55
6th Danny Yeo Kai Quan — 51.23

Boys 13-14 400m Individual Medley
1st Glen Lim Jun Wei — 4:43.28
2nd Damian Ho — 5:04.20
3rd Joshua Ler Shuen Young — 5:12.53

Men 15-17 400m Individual Medley
1st Ikuta Fujiwara (JPN) — 4:30.20
2nd Maximillian Ang — 4:36.68
3rd Donovan Lee Chuen Jin — 4:37.15
4th Peter Lee Chong Zheng — 4:47.19

Men 18 & Over 400m Individual Medley
1st Cho Cheng Chi (TPE) — 4:25.85
2nd Pang Sheng Jun — 4:26.40
3rd Jessie King Lacuna (AHSC) — 4:30.66
5th Lionel Khoo Chien Yin — 4:33.81

Boys 13-14 100m Backstroke
1st Mikkel Lee — 1:02.53
2nd Owen Teo Bo En — 1:03.66
3rd Collin Schuster — 1:04.35

Men 15-17 100m Backstroke
1st Francis Fong Jia Yi — 56.91 seconds (Final), 56.78 (Heats) (Meet Record)
2nd Shuto Endo (JPN) — 59.29
3rd Ko Nagano (JPN) — 59.85
4th Ethan Ong Wei Zhen — 1:00.95

Men 18 & Over 100m Backstroke
1st Quah Zheng Wen — 54.76 seconds (Final), 54.56 (Heats) (Meet Record)
2nd Rexford Tullius (USA) — 55.12
3rd Christian Diener (GER) — 55.24
6th Malcolm Low Wei Yang — 59.19

Men 13 & Over 4x100m Freestyle Relay
1st Singapore — 3:28.55
[Darren Lim 50.29; Darren Chua 51.64; Dylan Koo 53.07; Jonathan Tan 53.55]
2nd Indonesia — 3:33.33
3rd Aquatic Performance Swim Club ‘A’ — 3:36.85

More photos next page