Chantal Liew rediscovers her love for open waters as she guns for another Olympics

HANGZHOU – Motivation can be found in the most unexpected places. For open water swimmer Chantal Liew, it was two weeks in a hotel room during quarantine after her Olympic debut in 2021.

Her experience in Japan made the Singaporean reconsider her initial plans to retire from the sport and a fortnight at Fairmont Singapore gave her plenty of time to mull over it as she thought about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

Liew, 25, said: “I got to speak to a lot of coaches and they said I’ve only been racing internationally for open water for two years at most and they were regional meets. They said I had more potential, and that’s tempting as an athlete to want to unlock your full potential and not retire and go ‘what if’?”

Two years on, she is giving the Olympics another go. Last week, Liew competed at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, finishing fifth out of 13 swimmers at the Chun’an Jieshou Sports Centre Swimming Course in 2hr 8min 12.3sec, about 4½ minutes behind the winner Wu Shutong of China.

But the journey from Tokyo, where she became the Republic’s first open water swimmer at the Olympics, has not been easy. With no dedicated open water programme for her and few opportunities to go to competitions in 2022, Liew began to lose motivation.

The lack of racing opportunities frustrated Liew, who said competitions were important for open water swimmers to develop their skills and how to think strategically during the race.

In her sole competition of the year – July’s world championships in Budapest – she finished 45th in 2:14.09 and was the 10th-ranked Asian in the field.

Training began to feel like a chore. But that changed when she moved to Australia early in 2023 to pursue a Masters in Interaction Design at the University of Queensland and train at the Yeronga Park Swimming Club.

She said: “It was tough to come back from that because after the Olympics I said I wanted to unlock my potential and having that horrible year of swimming... I couldn’t hold my head high.

“It was really upsetting and disappointing so it’s good that I went to Australia and fell in love with the sport again, fell in love with the training and why I was doing what I was doing.”

She has noticed the change in her own mindset since going to Australia. Now if she is doing a 7.5km set, she swims an extra 500m to make it 8km but in 2022, she would have thought of ways to shorten it.

Liew also noted how the sporting culture there played a part in her rediscovering her love for open water swimming. She said: “It’s such a tight-knit community and you feel the love everywhere in Australia as an athlete, not just at the pool but in school.

“On the street, people really respect athletes, not like in Singapore where they kind of go ‘you’re an athlete, are you making money?’”

Training alongside Australia’s 2023 world championships silver medallist Chelsea Gubecka has also pushed Liew to improve as she works towards qualifying for the Paris Olympics.

There are a total of 22 quota spots up for grabs, down from 25 at the Tokyo Games. The next qualifying event is the World Aquatics Championships in Doha in February 2024.

The 13 highest-placed athletes will obtain a quota place for their country, while the highest-placed eligible athlete from each of the five continents will earn a quota spot for their nation.

While Liew was slightly disappointed that she could not improve on her Asian ranking from the 2023 world championships where she was fifth, she is excited for the next few months.

Her coach Kate Irvine said: “While she may not be super happy with her results, she is motivated to get back into the pool and training and get stronger and faster so that’s really exciting to see.”

Liew added: “I’ve come a long way since the last Olympics where I was just happy to participate in Tokyo.

“Now I’m going to the world champs, I’m going to the Asian Games and I’m hungry to do well.

“I’m not just here to make up the numbers, I’m here to race hard and try to fight for top positions.”