Amanda Lim considers SEA Games retirement U-turn after setting women’s 50m free national record

SINGAPORE – Even after announcing her SEA Games retirement following her women’s 50m freestyle gold at Thailand 2025, Singapore sprint queen Amanda Lim is continuing to make waves with a national record at age 33.

On May 30, she smashed Quah Ting Wen’s women’s 50m freestyle mark of 24.92sec set in 2019 with a sizzling 24.77 to win the final at the Singapore National Swimming Championships (SNSC) at the OCBC Aquatic Centre. Yeo Chiok Sze (24.98) and Nathalie Ring (25.54) placed second and third respectively.

Lim told The Sunday Times: “It’s a long time coming. I’ve been wanting to get the national record for a very, very long time. I knew I had a chance to do it tonight; I just didn’t know how fast I would go.

“The past few months of training have been pretty good. I’ve been swimming very fast times until my coach told me I was flying. It’s good to do a personal best at this age and I’m very happy with where I’m at right now.

“The key is to really just do what I have been doing in training. I’m always a good racer and two years ago I did my best time in this pool (24.94 at the 2024 SNSC), so I knew I was in a pretty good position.

“Chiok Sze also pushed me; she swam a pretty fast heats time this morning. I always welcome a little competition and my family was in the stands watching me and that’s basically all I can ask for – just to be present and enjoy every race that I have right here in Singapore.”

While she expected “to throw down a pretty fast time” after good build-up training alongside Australia’s men’s 50m freestyle Olympic champion Cameron McEvoy in Brisbane for a few weeks in April, she did not expect to meet the Commonwealth Games A-cut of 24.78sec to add to her earlier Asian Games qualification.

Lim, who clocked 25.62sec in the 2022 Commonwealth Games semi-finals and missed the final, and was fourth at the Asian Games in 2023 in 25.07, said: “I honestly did not think about going to the Commonwealth Games because I kind of pretty much drew up my plan from now till the Asian Games.

“I want to go back to Brisbane to get a good training block. But now that I have the A-cut, it’s a bigger conversation that I need to have with my coach.

“Asian Games is still the end goal for me because I have been preparing for that meet since last year after the world championships in Singapore.”

In December 2025, Lim signed off at the SEA Games by winning the women’s 50m freestyle final when she touched home first in 25.03sec, ahead of Filipinas Kayla Sanchez (25.15) and Heather White (25.38).

She later told ST it would be her last appearance at the biennial meet as she wrapped up her 10th outing with her seventh win in her pet event.

Now, she is thinking about taking part in the next edition in Malaysia in 2027.

The Ernst & Young senior consultant said: “I really just want to see how I swim at the Asian Games. If I do another personal best and I’m feeling good, that just proves to me that whatever I’m doing right now works and I don’t see why I can’t swim at another SEA Games.

“The goal is to swim and represent Singapore for as long as possible. I just hope that there will be enough support for me to swim the way that I want, because I also have to juggle a full-time job.

“Ernst & Young has been super supportive of me in terms of giving me leave to go overseas and train and really believing in my swimming career.

“If I’m swimming well, still want to compete and race, and if the passion and fire are still there, I wouldn’t say no.”

Meanwhile, 16-year-old Tedd Chan set a boys’ Under-17 100m backstroke national record of 56.49sec while swimming his team’s lead-off leg in the men’s 4x100m medley relay to break Gabriel Koo’s 2021 mark of 56.58.

National swimming head coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “As a coach who has seen Amanda train and compete over the last few years, I knew this national record was something she was gunning for all along and I’m really proud that she did it in a great fashion in home waters.

“This bodes well for her going into the Asian Games and it will be a good confidence booster for her.

“Coming off nine meet records, looking at the whole of the junior pipeline coming through and talking about a renewal, our junior swimmers have stepped up with the likes of Megan Yo, Julia Yeo, Russel Pang, Reagan Cheng and Tedd Chan.”

He added: “The kids and clubs and swimmers have actually made some strides and improvements since the Singapore National Age Group Swimming Championships.

“We’ve made our times and policies a bit more challenging for qualification to the Aug 17-20 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, but they’ve stepped up to meet the mark. These are the key indicators for us to see how the shift has turned out in the junior side of things and it’s looking promising so far.”