S’pore swimmer Letitia Sim finishes 22nd in women’s 200m breaststroke at Paris 2024

PARIS – At the mixed zone in the Paris La Defense Arena, national swimmer Letitia Sim took a moment to collect herself.

There were tears in her eyes and her disappointment was palpable. Just minutes before, she had swum in the women’s 200m breaststroke heats, clocking 2min 29.46sec, some way off her national record of 2:24.15.

She knew that she could go faster, but somehow things did not fall into place on July 31 as she finished 22nd in the 23-swimmer field, which was led by South Africa’s defending champion Tatjana Smith (2:21.57).

Sim felt more confident than she did two days ago, when she made her Olympic bow in the women’s 100m breaststroke, and kept up with the pack in the first half of the race, but could not maintain the momentum.

The 21-year-old said: “I felt like I really gave it a push, but it just never got there, it never got that last kick at the end, the last fight. I tried to mentally push past that but it just didn’t hold up well at the end.

“It’s just really hard because I know I’ve been faster at other big meets so just seeing that time makes me really disappointed.”

But she knows there is no time to dwell over it because she still has one more event left – the women’s 4x100m medley relay on Aug 3.

It took a while for her to move past her performance in the 100m breast, where she registered a time of 1min 7.75sec to place 25th out of 37 swimmers, and hopes that history will not repeat itself.

Sim said: “I know there are a lot of barriers that we have to push through and for me, the hardest pill to swallow, even after the 100m breast was being able to get over that event, get over the time, get over my placing.”

Turning her attention to the relay, which she will be swimming with her sister Levenia, Gan Ching Hwee and Quah Jing Wen, Sim said the focus will now be less on herself as she prepares for the event with her team.

She said: “I don’t really have any regrets because I really gave it everything I had, I tried everything in the book that I knew worked for me in the past but somehow the puzzles weren’t really fitting as usual.

“But it’s okay, it’s a huge learning curve that I have to go through and it’s my first Olympic Games so there are a lot of things I’m going to carry forward into more meets and bigger events.”

Sim’s teammate Jonathan Tan will be the only Singaporean swimmer in action on Aug 1, as he takes part the men’s 50m free, his second event at the Olympics.