Another record for women's 4x100m free relay team as Ting Wen wins fourth gold
After winning four gold medals – all in record time – on Wednesday, the Quah siblings continued to shine at the New Clark City Aquatics Center.
On Friday, Zheng Wen, 23, retained his 200m backstroke title and won the 4x100m freestyle relay along with Darren Chua, Jonathan Tan and Joseph Schooling – both in Games record times. He also qualified for the Olympics' 100m butterfly, after finishing just 0.03 seconds behind Schooling, who won in 51.84sec.
On Saturday, it was the turn of eldest sibling Ting Wen to pick up her third and fourth gold medals of the Games.
The 27-year-old clinched the 50m butterfly title in a Games record of 26.50sec before teaming up with younger sister Jing Wen, Cherlyn Yeoh and Amanda Lim to win the 4x100m freestyle relay in 3min 40.92sec, setting another Games and national record in the process.
The previous meet record of 3:44.38 was set at the 2017 SEA Games by the same quartet, with the exception of Natasha Ong taking the place of Yeoh.
That was lowered to 3:44.21 at last year's Asian Games by the two Quah sisters, Yeoh and Christie Chue, who trimmed it by another 0.10sec at the World Championships in July.
Said Ting Wen: "We've broken the relay record a few times already in the past three years... I don't even know what it is, but I think we broke it. So that's good. That's progress and progress is always good.
"Like I said before, the world's getting faster. If we don't get faster than everyone else, we're basically like getting slower. So this is good..."
On Saturday, Zheng Wen had to settle for silver in the 50m backstroke, where he finished 0.53sec behind Indonesia's I Gede Sudatarwa, who clocked 25.12sec.
When asked if he was disappointed, he said: "I guess you could say that. I don't know how much you guys saw I slipped on the start... I know I could have been a lot faster so it's like a technical error on my part...
"But there's nothing I can do about it now but try to learn from it and be better prepared for the medley relay on the last day to make sure it doesn't happen again and just redirect my focus on my last individual event which is the 200m fly on the last day as well."
Meanwhile, Darren Chua, 19, clinched his first individual title at the SEA Games by winning the 200m freestyle in a personal best of 1min 48.26sec, just ahead of Malaysia’s Welson Sim (1:48.52). Vietnam’s Hoang Quy Phuoc was third in 1:48.59.
Chua said he was expecting just a podium finish and admitted that he was surprised by his victory. He said: "I was pretty nervous coming into this race. It's one of the hardest races that I've ever swam."
Singapore's swimmers also picked up a silver through 16-year-old Gan Ching Hwee (4:14.56) in the women's 400m freestyle and a bronze via 18-year-old Maximillian Ang (2:13.96) in the men's 200m breaststroke. Both are personal best timings.
Ang, who also rewrote the national record, said: "The first 100m, first 50m I was leading. It was very tough in the second 100m. But I did my best and I'm super happy with my personal best.
"Although I'm third, I'm still grateful for it and I'll be back in the next SEA Games and I'll race them hard and maybe even get a gold medal next time and I'll continue breaking more national records.
"Hopefully, I'll be able to make the 2020 Olympic 'A' cut by next year. It's about 2:10... I'm just about three seconds away."
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