'ZEN' GAN MAKES HER MARK

Debutante shuts out noise, rewrites own 500m record but just misses the final

- Kimberly Kwek

It was a race that she had waited three years for and, on her Olympic debut, Singapore swimmer Gan Ching Hwee found the calm to block out the noise.

As she waited in the call room for her women's 1,500m freestyle heat on July 30, the first race nerves were present and she could hear the fervent crowd at the Paris La Defense Arena.

But, once she was off the blocks and in the water, she was in her element.

The chants and cheers of the crowd were drowned out and all she heard was just the familiar sound of water splashing around her ears, bringing her "a kind of zen".

With the 21-year-old in the zone, she clocked 16min 10.13sec to rewrite her previous national record 16:10.61 set in June at the Singapore National Swimming Championships, topping Heat 1 in the process.

She finished ninth in the 16swimmer field, with less than two seconds separating her from Germany's Leonie Martens (16:08.69), who took the last spot for the eight-swimmer final.

Gan is the first reserve for the final on July 31. American Katie Grimes, 18, is the second reserve (16:12.11).