'Disappointed' Quah well off his best

Quah Zheng Wen competes in the 200m butterfly heats in Gwangju yesterday. His next race is Friday's 4x200m free relay. PHOTO: SINGAPORE SWIMMING ASSOCIATION
Quah Zheng Wen competes in the 200m butterfly heats in Gwangju yesterday. His next race is Friday's 4x200m free relay. PHOTO: SINGAPORE SWIMMING ASSOCIATION

Quah Zheng Wen's hopes of qualifying for the men's 200m butterfly final at the Fina World Swimming Championships were dashed yesterday after the Singaporean clocked 1min 59.10sec in the morning heats.

He was 27th in a field of 47 and missed out on a semi-final spot in Gwangju, South Korea.

Quah was well off his personal best of 1:56.01sec set at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and over two seconds slower than his last outing at the world meet two years ago. Then, he was 18th in 1:56.76.

Quah, a third-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, had chosen to focus on his pet event, the 200m fly, this year in a bid to make the top eight.

At the last world championships in Budapest, he did not progress from the heats in all his five events, the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke, 100m and 200m fly.

"I am very disappointed with my performance but I am putting these feelings aside so I can put my 100 per cent in the relays coming up," said Quah, who is pencilled in for the men's 4x200m freestyle on Friday and Saturday's 50m backstroke.

"I've learnt a lot about things I can improve on and it's not over yet," added the 22-year-old competing in his third world championships.

Singapore head coach and performance director Stephan Widmer said: "Zheng Wen could not find the zone today to go out and execute the race plan. His 200m fly this morning was definitely not what he is capable of.

"He is a great racer, he can attack and that's what he needs to do more confidently for his next individual races and the relays."

Singapore's swimmers have had a mixed outing at the world meet so far, with Olympic champion Joseph Schooling, 24, missing out on the men's 50m fly semi-finals on Sunday, clocking 23.73sec to finish 20th overall.

But he earned some consolation when he linked up with Quah, Jonathan Tan and Darren Chua to set the national record of 3:16.66 in the men's 4x100m free to be 18th overall.

The women's 4x100m free team of sisters Quah Ting Wen and Jing Wen, Cherlyn Yeoh and Christie Chue also set the national record of 3:43.11. They finished 17th to miss out on the final.

Schooling, who won a joint bronze in the 100m fly in Budapest, will be back in action on Friday to contest the heats for the 100m fly and 4x200m free.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on July 24, 2019, with the headline 'Disappointed' Quah well off his best. Subscribe