Gan Ching Hwee in, Quah Ting Wen out in Olympic swimming selection twist

SINGAPORE – The national swim team bound for the upcoming Olympics are facing unexpected rough waters as World Aquatics (Aqua) prepares to finalise its list of 852 swimmers for Paris 2024.

In a late turn of events, Quah Ting Wen, who was part of the women’s 4x100m medley relay team – along with Quah Jing Wen, Letitia Sim and Levenia Sim – that finished ninth at the world championships and secured a historical Olympic relay qualification, looks set to miss her fourth Olympics.

At Team Singapore’s Olympics and Paralympics flag presentation ceremony on July 6, the 31-year-old’s name was noticeably missing from the 22-athlete list for the Olympics.

The world governing body for aquatics had on July 4 confirmed Singapore’s entry for the relay.

But, a day later, it sent an invitation for Gan Ching Hwee to participate based on her meeting the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT or “B” cut) of 16min 13.94sec for the women’s 1,500m freestyle with her national record of 16:10.61 at the Singapore national championships in June.

Swimmers automatically qualify for the Olympics if they meet the Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT or “A” cut) and may receive an invitation to compete if they meet the OCT; the OQT for the women’s 1,500m freestyle is 16:09.09.

Under Aqua rules, each relay team can field a maximum of two relay-only swimmers.

For Singapore’s women’s team, only Letitia met the OQT in the 100m breaststroke.

The waters are muddied as Aqua also states it “may, in its absolute discretion and on an exceptional basis, offer additional relay-only athlete quota places to the NOC for the sole purpose of enabling the relay team to participate in the relevant event”.

However, after Aqua cleared the Quah and Sim sisters to compete in Paris, the OCT invitation to Gan meant she could swim in the relay and Singapore no longer need special dispensation for a third relay-only swimmer.

As the 20-year-old is a freestyle specialist, it appears she would take the place of Ting Wen, who also swims the freestyle leg of the relay.

Singapore Aquatics (SAQ) president Mark Chay confirmed it received the OCT invitation, which Gan has accepted, and that Ting Wen has lodged an appeal, which will be heard by the association’s appeals committee on July 7.

He added that “in the best interest of the team”, the SAQ will continue to appeal to Aqua for both swimmers to compete at Paris 2024, and provide further updates after the appeal processes are complete.

Incidentally, there was also a selection tussle between the two swimmers for the Tokyo Games in 2021, although the circumstances were different.

Then, the Singapore Swimming Association (SSA, now known as SAQ) announced Ting Wen would go to Tokyo 2020 through a universality place as the highest-ranked athlete based on the points table of Fina (now known as Aqua).

Two days later, Fina also sent a “B” cut invite to Gan.

Based on its selection policy, which stated universality consideration would occur only if no swimmers achieve the “A” cut and no other swimmers receive a “B” cut invite, the SSA selection committee picked Gan for the Olympics.

But Quah had the decision overturned on appeal as the SSA appeals committee took into consideration Fina’s priority order, which was that universality places took precedence over reallocated “B” cut invites.