Quah Jing Wen sets new national 200m individual medley mark
But she pulls out of B final, with national head coach Widmer saying she has to learn to recover quickly
After rewriting the national women's 200m individual medley record on Sunday, the next step for United States-based national swimmer Quah Jing Wen is to learn how to recover quickly during meets, said national head coach and performance director Stephan Widmer.
The Texas A&M University second-year undergraduate clocked 2min 16.30sec in the 200 individual medley heats on the final day of the 2019 Canadian Swimming Trials at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre.
That bettered the mark of 2:16.85 set by Samantha Yeo at the 2017 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.
Quah, 18, finished third in her heat and ninth overall, and qualified for the B final, but did not compete. She could not be contacted for comment.
"It's highly crucial to have the ability of swimming fast and a high quality of racing, but then recovering entirely to come back the same or next day for the semi-finals or finals," Widmer told The Straits Times.
"If you want to be in the international scene, particularly the World Championships and Tokyo 2020, you need this and her coaches have to figure it out because I don't believe it's there now."
With her time, Quah has met the B-cuts for July's Fina World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The A-cut timings for the World Championships and Olympics are 2:13.03 and 2:12.56 respectively.
Widmer also highlighted the importance of Quah finding the right balance between training and school commitments.
"She's a young athlete with school demands. She has to figure out nutrition, studying, training and balancing all these things is not an easy task," he said.
"But great athletes do figure it out and, the more you want it, the more likely you will find the right balance.
"Each individual has a different balance and you can only learn from experience.
"The coaches have to provide that feedback for the individual and I'm sure they will be on the journey to find more individual answers for Jing Wen."
Earlier in the meet, Quah clocked 2:14.64 in the 200m butterfly B final to finish second behind Ohio State University's Kathrin Demler (2:12.74). She also swam in the 100m fly heats, clocking 59.95sec to finish 10th.
Her older brother, Zheng Wen, 22, also competed in Toronto and won the 200m fly B final in 1:59.19 on Saturday. The University of California, Berkeley third-year undergraduate also finished second in both the 100m backstroke B final (56.13) and the 100m fly B final (52.42).
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
