S’pore’s Stephenie Chen through to kayak semi-finals on Olympic debut

PARIS – Thanks to the rules, Singapore kayaker Stephenie Chen could make full use of the women’s K1 500m heat to shake off her nerves and put in a better performance in her quarter-final to secure a semi-final spot.

On a bright and sunny day at Vaires-sur-Marne, where fans cheered with air horns, the 32-year-old marked her Olympic debut on Aug 7 by clocking 1min 53.88sec to finish fifth out of eight in the first of four quarter-finals.

In the process, she advanced to the Aug 10 semi-finals as one of the five fastest athletes in each quarter-final.

Ahead of her were Belgian Lize Broekx (1:49.78), Canadian Michelle Russell (1:49.79), Bulgarian Yoana Georgieva (1:51.74) and Croat Anamaria Govorcinovic (1:52.92).

Earlier in the day, Chen finished fifth out of six competitors in Heat 6 in 1:58.52. The fastest two from each of the six heats progressed directly to the semi-finals while the third- to seventh-fastest moved on to the quarter-finals, which meant she was assured of a second race as long as she finished legally.

She told The Straits Times: “I had a lot of things to work on from the heats. I had a good start and after that I kind of lost the plot, but I managed to regroup and finish. The quarter-final was a lot better – I had a good start and a relatively good finish.

“It’s a whole different atmosphere out here, the crowd is crazy. I tried to imagine it like the 2024 World Cup in Hungary where the crowd was always so full-on, but this was on a different level.

“I had things that I was focusing on during my race that doesn’t really change. It’s just how well I execute it. I have a good start generally, so I just need to chase it out, keep the speed, open up, let my stroke lengthen and keep my body pumping all the way to the end.”

Chen had earned her Paris 2024 berth at the Asian canoe sprint Olympic qualifiers in April. In doing so, she made up for the disappointment of missing Tokyo 2020 by 0.938sec in the K1 500m and then an even more agonising 0.067sec in the K1 200m.

She is so focused on “doing my best”, she shared she is not really sure about how the rules work in terms of progression to the later stages.

For the record, the fastest two in each of the four semi-finals will qualify for Final A, the third and fourth move on to Final B, while the fifth and sixth will make Final C.

The Asian Games silver medallist also admitted to having the “weird feeling” of arriving in the Olympic Village on Aug 2 in the midst of the Games, as some have already moved out. Only Shannon Tan, who is still competing in the women’s golf competition, remains in Team Singapore’s apartment, while the sailors are in Marseille.

Chen, who painted her nails in the colours of the Olympic rings while she was in a three-week training camp in Portugal before she flew to Paris, said: “It’s nice to watch Team Singapore compete and I watched the Olympics so much more than when I’m here. Now that I’m in Paris, I haven’t watched a single competition.

“I know that I needed some time to adjust and we would have liked to have more time here. But being in my own bubble was also good because there were things that I really wanted to focus and work on in the last few weeks, and I managed that.”

Chen is the Republic’s first Olympic kayaker since Geraldine Lee (K1 500m) competed at London 2012, where she finished seventh out of eight athletes in the second of three K1 500m semi-finals. Lee was the first Singaporean to compete in the sport at the Olympics.