Asian Games 2026: Amanda Lim shows courage to swim against the tide
While many of her peers are pre-occupied with scaling the corporate ladder quickly, ASEAN’s fastest female swimmer Amanda Lim is focused on shaving off milliseconds underwater.
At 33, it takes courage for the Ernst & Young senior consultant to juggle work in Singapore and sabbaticals to train in Australia, while others her age are already senior managers.
Ahead of the Sept 19-Oct 4 Asian Games in Japan, where she will compete in the women’s 50m freestyle, she said: “It’s my fifth Asiad, and I have 10 SEA Games under my belt. I have nothing to prove and it’s easier to walk away.
“I could be earning $15,000 a month now. But it’s okay, maybe later, because I still want something from the sport. I want to see how much more I can improve.”
In a bid to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics, the seven-time SEA Games champion left the national team in December 2023 to train independently after a stagnant spell.
Through her good friend, Hong Kong swimmer Stephanie Au, she linked up with Australian coach David Lush. But in November 2023, she learnt that her late father was diagnosed with liver cancer.
She recounted: “I asked his doctor if I could go train in Brisbane for a few months, and he said it was okay if my dad opted for treatment.
“I’m the type who will make things happen once I have my mind set on something. So, I chose the hard path.”
“Looking back, it was a selfish decision because those were times I could have spent with my dad.”
Her father Lim Heng Cheh died in September 2025, but he was the one who set Amanda on the path to become a successful national athlete after she started swimming at age six to cope with childhood asthma.
Amanda Lim celebrating after winning the women’s 50m freestyle in record time at the 2026 Singapore National Swimming Championships at the OCBC Aquatic Centre on May 30.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CLEMENT CHEW
With a PSLE score of 230, she enrolled in the Singapore Sports School in 2006 when the school was only in its third year of existence. Instead of the conventional four-year route to the O levels, she opted for the novel through-train diploma programme that allowed her to develop her swimming potential with the school over six years.
Amanda said: “My dad said that if I wanted to continue swimming, I needed to go to the sports school because it would be very hard to juggle sports and studies if I went to a mainstream school.
“He was a man of few words who rarely intervened, but that was one of the few things he decided for me. I never regretted that as it was the best time of my life.”
Following more than two decades of competitive swimming, she needed to be bold again to believe in the training programme she built with the team she assembled, which cost her $90,000 over two years.
While she failed to qualify for the Olympics, she achieved a personal best of 24.94sec at the 2024 Singapore National Swimming Championships (SNSC) and finally broke the 25-second barrier.
She then trained under former men’s short-course 50m backstroke world record holder Bobby Hurley at Tanglin Trust School. Hurley then recommended a new training method with another Australian coach Tim Lane, who coached Cameron McEvoy to a historic men’s 50m freestyle gold at Paris 2024.
Amanda said: “My training distance dropped a lot but the intensity was so high, I was very tired all the time. Training by myself, I did really slow times and got so angry, I would go to the bottom of the pool and shout.
“But the McEvoy Method reshaped the way I approached sprinting.”
Despite a poor 25.53sec at the 2025 world championships in Singapore, she trusted the process, and an extended block of strength and mobility training with Englishman Matt Smith helped.
She reclaimed SEA Games gold in December 2025 and set the national record with a sizzling 24.77sec at the SNSC in May, raising prospects of a first Asiad medal as only four other Asian swimmers have posted faster times in 2026.
As fate would have it, the women’s 50m freestyle will be held on Sept 24, her father’s death anniversary.
Amanda, who finished eighth, seventh, fifth and fourth at the previous Asiads, said: “The 24.77 is probably the first race in my life that I’m content with, and I want to get that feeling again at the Asian Games.
“I know I’m in a position to get a medal, but I really just want a time that I can be so happy and proud of.”
Choosing an unconventional academic path: With a PSLE score of 230, Amanda Lim made the bold move in 2006 to enrol at the Singapore Sports School – then only in its third year of existence – rather than at a mainstream school. Instead of the conventional four-year route to the O levels, she opted for the novel through-train diploma programme that allowed her to develop her swimming potential with the school for six years.
Training overseas after late father’s cancer diagnosis: During what she described as a “mid-life crisis”, Lim could not break the 25-second barrier in the women’s 50m freestyle. In late 2023, through Hong Kong swimmer Stephanie Au, she linked up with Australian coach David Lush. At this point, Lim’s father was diagnosed with liver cancer. After consulting with his doctors, she made the hard decision to proceed Down Under to train independently.
Setting up her own “dream team”: Lim failed to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics but achieved a personal best of 24.94 at the 2024 Singapore National Swimming Championships (SNSC). Emboldened, she built her own “dream team” with Australian swim coaches Bobby Hurley and Tim Lane, and English strength and mobility coach Matt Smith, taking sabbaticals to train in Brisbane and spending $90,000 over two years.
Trusting the process to pursue swim dream at 33: Her training distance decreased sharply, but the intensity was so high that she burned out. So angry with her slow times, Lim sank to the pool floor to shout. But after an extended block of strength training, she regained SEA Games gold in 2025 and set the national record with a sizzling 24.77 at the SNSC in May. As her peers climb the corporate ladder, she aims to go faster at the Asian Games.