SINGAPORE — The Singapore national swimmers not only brought home a record haul of 22 gold, 15 silver and 10 bronze medals from the 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia. They also broke multiple meet records, set new national records, and swimmer Jonathan Tan’s timings in the men’s 50m freestyle met the qualifying mark for the Paris Olympics.
In total, six new meet records were achieved by the swimmers at the Morodok Tecno National Aquatics Centre in Phnom Penh. Tan had an impressive sprint in the 50m freestyle with a time of 21.95s as he won gold, with teammate Teong Tzen Wei coming in second at 22.50s. The men’s 4x100m medley relay team also set a new games and national record. Tan, along with Quah Zheng Wen, Nicholas Mahabir, and Teong fought a fierce battle against the Thais and clinched the gold medal with a time of 3:37.45s
With four golds and a silver medal won in Cambodia, Tan is definitely pleased with his achievement, and is now setting his sights on upcoming competitions and preparing himself for a bigger stage later in the year.
“We still have many major meets coming up, the World Champs and the Asian Games. These two are the next steps towards that (the Olympics). My team and I have been training hard leading up to this SEA Games, and as a whole we have done very well. It is a good motivation for us to carry on to the next two meets,” said 21-year-old Tan.
“Most of the time I always gauged my performance, whether I hit my personal best or not, and for this meet, I managed to hit my goal. And the big bonus would be the Olympics.”
The rest of the new meet records were in the women’s events and were set by Letitia Sim in the 100m and 200m breaststroke with a time of 1:07.94s and 2:28.49s respectively. Quah Ting Wen was involved in the other two meet records — in the 50m freestyle (25.04s) and the 4x100m medley relay with her sister Quah Jing Wen, Faith Khoo and Sim as they clocked 4:06.97s to win the gold medal ahead of the Philippines.
“I came into these games wanting to do well, and we did pretty well last year as a team, and four years ago in the Philippines too. Our goal was to match that or to do better. My last two campaigns had been much better than 2013. I tried my best in every event and gave my all,” said Ting Wen when the swimmers arrived in Singapore after their SEA Games triumph.
Despite amassing six golds and two silver medals at the SEA Games, Ting Weng felt that she could have done better in her final individual race. She came agonisingly second with a time of 26.66s, behind Thailand’s Jenjira Srisaard, who clocked 26.65s.
“I wouldn’t say it was a perfect meet. There were some things that I wish I could have done better, for example, the 50m fly. My last individual event at the meet. A part of me wishes I could have ended the meet on a high,” said Ting Wen.
There is an additional one gold, a silver and two bronze medals for the Singapore Swimming Association as the men’s national water polo team reclaimed the gold medal which they lost in the 2019 SEA Games, and the women’s national water polo team won the silver medal. In the diving discipline, Avvir Tham and Max Lee took third place in the men’s 3m springboard and men’s platform competition respectively.