Citing 'unfinished business', swimmer Amanda Lim aims for greater heights

SINGAPORE — National swimmer Amanda Lim was contemplating quitting the sport ahead of last year’s SEA Games. But after winning gold again, in front of the home crowd, and witnessing teammate Joseph Schooling making history at last month’s Olympics, she was inspired enough to change her mind.

In Rio de Janeiro, Schooling captured the imagination of a nation when he took Singapore’s first-ever Olympics gold medal after winning the 100m butterfly final, in an Olympic record time of 50.39s.

Team-mate Quah Zheng Wen also had an impressive Games, making the semi-finals of the 100m and 200m butterfly.

“I was having some kind of a quarter-life crisis (in June last year). I was thinking about stopping,” said Lim, 24, who won the 50m freestyle at every edition of the SEA Games (four in total) since 2009 in Vientianne, and each time in a new Games record.

Lim, who took a break from swimming since mid-July and returned to training only last week, said she is taking it step by step.

“I am now taking baby steps, and just trying to find the motivation every day to train again. It has just been a long career, and my results have been pretty stagnant for awhile too.

“But I felt like I had unfinished business. Joseph’s and Zheng’s Olympic feats helped me (in believing I can achieve success on the international stage),” she said.

“So, I want to give myself maybe another one or two more years in the sport to try out things I perhaps haven’t done so in the past few years, and see if that would take me to greater heights.”

Her targets are defending her 50m freestyle gold at the 2017 SEA Games, and hopefully break her own national record in the event (25.38s, set at the 2009 Asian Youth Games) at the 2018 Asian Games.

And if her timings are showing steady improvement, she will try to qualify in the “A” standard for the 2020 Olympics.

“I’ve seen Joseph when he was really young, how he trained and how he has grown over the past few years,” said Lim. “His success gave me and the rest of the swimmers reassurance that if he can, why can’t we?”

Lim, whose swimming career has spanned nine years but has never based herself overseas to train for a prolonged period of time, added that she believed the current local system can produce swimmers who are able to hold their own against the best in the world.

“Some people might say that Joseph went to the United States to train (which was why he was able to succeed),” she said. “But, look at Zheng Wen. He trains in Singapore all along. So, there is no more excuse for the rest of us.”

It is not just Lim who has been buoyed by Schooling’s and Quah’s 2016 Olympics feat.

Marina Chan, 18, also said on Tuesday (Sept 20) that she is getting herself ready to take a medal at the 2020 Olympics.

“I always have high standards of myself, but Joseph’s success made me believe in myself a little more,” she said.