'Wake-up call' for S'pore swimmers: Coach

With three national records in two days as well as a final berth on home soil, distance swimmer Gan Ching Hwee shone at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH) in Singapore.

- Deepanraj Ganesan

The 22-year-old's performance, however, was a rare bright spot for the hosts. No one else from the 16-member Singapore swimming team reached the semi-finals at the WCH Arena, with national coach and performance director Gary Tan labelling it a "good wake-up call" for the rest.

Rating the campaign a "soft" seven out of 10, he told The Straits Times on Aug 3: "Could we have seen more semi-finalists? We definitely had more semi-finalists in Doha (2024 WCH) and an Olympic qualifier. This time, we only had one girl in the finals and no semi-finalists."

Swatting away suggestions that the swimmers were focusing on the year-end SEA Games instead, Tan said: "We were gunning for this. We did whatever we could in our best capacity to prepare them in the best way possible.

"But again, swimming is like this. There will always be days that you'll fall short, and unfortunately it had to happen in Singapore when we missed out on maybe three or four chances to make evening swims."

At the 2024 WCH in Doha, the women's 4x100m medley relay team comprising two pairs of sisters - Quah Ting Wen and Jing Wen as well as Letitia and Levenia Sim - set a national record in the heats to clinch a historic qualification for the Paris Olympics.

Letitia (200m medley, 100m and 200m breaststroke), Teong Tzen Wei (50m butterfly) and Jing Wen (200m fly) also reached the semi-finals.