Swimmer Quah Zheng Wen shrugs off Youth Olympics and Asian Games disappointments to qualify for SEA Games

SINGAPORE — National swimmer Quah Zheng Wen has met the South-east Asian (SEA) Games qualifying time for the men’s 100m backstroke, despite a two-and-a-half month break from the pool to focus on his examinations.

At the Yakult 10th Singapore National Swimming Championships (SNSC) at the OCBC Aquatic Centre on Tuesday night (Dec 16), the 18-year-old met the event’s qualifying benchmark of 57.27 when he won in 56.17secs, and in the process also broke his own meet record of 56.60 set last year.

Quah, who holds the national open record of 55.99 for this event, was the silver medallist for the event at the 2013 SEA Games in 56.11secs.

Also meeting the SEA Games qualifying benchmark for the men’s 100m back was Zach Ong with a time of 57.03.

Quah and Ong now face an anxious wait to see if their times will be bettered at the three remaining qualifying meets for next year’s SEA Games.

Only the two fastest swimmers in each event will be nominated by the Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) to the Singapore National Olympic Council for the 2015 SEA Games, which Singapore will host from June 5 to 16.

The SNSC is one of four qualifying events, the others being the time trials in January and February, and Singapore National Age Group Championships in March.

“I am definitely not up to my best yet,” said Quah, who won six medals at the 2013 SEA Games, including two gold (400m individual medley, 4x200m freestyle relay). “I missed out on the Youth Olympic Games in August and the Asian Games in September too. It has not been easy. It hurt a lot more than it should in my swim today, but I am catching up with my fitness and everything.”

Quah will be enlisting into National Service (NS) after next year’s SEA Games, and hopes to improve on his form and qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“There are some sacrifices I have to make — for my studies and NS. But I want to see what I can do when the Olympics come around,” he said.

Meanwhile, national team-mates Danny Yeo and Pang Sheng Jun also set themselves up for qualification for the 2015 SEA Games when they went under the qualifying mark of 1min 51.66secs for the men’s 200m freestyle.

Yeo swam 1:51.09 to come in first, while Pang took second in 1:51.31. Teo Zhen Ren was third in 1:53.11.

Christopher Cheong also went under qualifying mark (2:18.57) for the men’s 200m breaststroke, touching the wall first in 2:18.51. By doing so, Cheong also re-wrote the meet record of 2:19.36 set by Lionel Khoo in 2012.