Pang, Lim bounce back from Rio disappointment with ASEAN Uni Games golds

SINGAPORE — National swimmers Pang Sheng Jun and Amanda Lim may have missed out on the Rio Olympics, but the two Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students were far too good for their Asean University Game rivals at the OCBC Aquatic Centre yesterday as they triumphed in the 400m Individual Medley (IM) and 100m freestyle respectively.

Pang put in one of the performances of the night, setting an AUG record with his time of 4mins 25.29secs, which is just 0.48secs off his Personal Best (PB) result.

Thailand’s Jiarapong Sangkhawat was second in 4mins 29.29secs, while Indonesian Muhammad Hamgari (4mins 33.10) finished third.

Pang, who met the ‘B’ qualifying times in the 400m freestyle and 400m IM for Rio but was not selected by world body FINA for the Games, had just returned from the national swim team’s training camp in Florida last Friday.

“I’m actually still jet-lagged and not at full form, so I’m really happy to have posted such good results,” he said.

“Of course, I’m still disappointed to have failed to qualify for the Olympics. But what I’ve learnt from my coaches Sergio (Lopez), Gary (Tan) and Sonya (Porter) is that I should still swim my heart out in every race, and that’s what I did today.”

The NTU Sports Science and Management student has already set his sights on reaching the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

“I know I have lots of room for improvement, and I’ll be at my peak age for a swimmer by 2020,” he said.

“Furthermore, I’m planning to swim full-time once I graduate in 2018, and I’m sure this will result in huge progress in my swims.”

Amanda Lim, seen here in a TODAY file photo, set a new Asean University Games record in the women's 100m freestyle.

Lim posted a season-best time and AUG record of 56.68 secs in the 100m freestyle. But the 23-year-old NTU student admitted the win did not ease the frustration at having missed out on the Rio Games.

“(Winning) does not ease the pain, because it is after all the Olympics we are talking about,” said Lim. “But that’s out of my control now, and whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

“Since I’m not competing in Rio, I wanted to see how I could perform here at the AUG, and I’m very pleased with how I did.”