SEA Games 2025: Swimmer Quah Ting Wen targets Joscelin Yeo’s record in 10th outing

BANGKOK – A front-row seat to greatness was what swimmer Quah Ting Wen got in her SEA Games debut in 2005, when the then 13-year-old watched her teammate Joscelin Yeo collect six golds and two silvers at the Trace College Aquatics Centre in the Philippines.

Yeo’s feat helped Team Singapore return to the top of the swimming medal table and the Singaporean legend retired after the event with an astounding 62 medals, of which 40 were golds.

Two decades on, Quah stands on the cusp of greatness herself. The 33-year-old has 60 SEA Games medals – 34 of them golds – and she looks set to eclipse Yeo’s 62-medal record as she is pencilled in for six events: the women’s 50m and 100m freestyle and butterfly events, as well as the 4x100m freestyle and medley relays.

Quah told The Straits Times ahead of the Thailand meet: “My personal goal is to try to break the overall number of medals. The total number of gold medals, we’ll see. That’s not really on my radar.

“It’s like a little personal challenge, but I do remember our Singapore Aquatics manager telling us that if I do another edition of the Games, I’m very close to breaking some numbered records.”

Her affinity with swimming started from water safety classes at five and she joined the Singapore Amateur Swimming Association’s centre of excellence the following year.

Aged nine, she started competing and trained at Swimfast Aquatic Club under former national swimmer David Lim.

In 2004, Singapore Swimming Association coaching director John Dempsey – the Australian has worked with Olympic champions Leisel Jones and Jessicah Schipper – described her as “the most talented 11-year-old I have come across”.

Still, there was no indication of Quah’s longevity when she won silvers in the women’s 800m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle, and bronzes in the 400m freestyle and individual medley in 2005.

Her big breakthrough came at the 2007 Games in Korat, Thailand, where she won her first individual gold after edging out Malaysia’s Siow Yi Ting by 0.21 seconds.

Quah said: “This was my first major international win, and prior to that, I was quite a reserved and introverted person, so I didn’t have the confidence to believe that I could be the best until I touched the wall.

“It was that moment when I realised and understood I could be good and I could win at this level.”

Another triumphant moment stands out in her career – the women’s 4x200m freestyle win in home waters in 2015, when she posted an outstanding anchor-leg swim to beat Thailand. It was made more memorable when her fellow Singaporeans sang the national anthem acapella due to technical issues during the medal ceremony.

Quah said: “Growing up in Singapore, people are just not very expressive, but people just continued singing after our anthem stopped playing. At that moment, I never felt more proud to represent Singapore, especially on home ground, in front of my people.”

There have been some low moments. In 2011, she missed the Indonesia Games after breaking her arm in a surfing accident.

Two years later, she had her worst outing when she returned from Myanmar with two golds and five silvers, which made her realise that “I couldn’t be complacent and just rely on being good”.

There were also times when she questioned herself after seeing her former teammates move on and advance in their post-retirement careers.

But she still believes in putting in the hard yards in the pool, while pursuing a master’s degree in counselling and therapy.

On what keeps her going, she said: “There’s that sense of fulfilment and satisfaction after a day of good work done...

“It helps that I am very, very comfortable and very confident in the water. I’m someone who really enjoys routine... Having my siblings do the same sport and having a very supportive community around me really helps.”

Alexander Mordvincev, national training centre co-lead coach noted that she has “developed into a more complete and self-aware athlete”, adding that she continues to “refine key technical elements, from starts and turns to stroke efficiency and race execution”.

Impressively, Quah has reaped more medals at the SEA Games with age. In 2023, she achieved her best haul at the biennial meet with six golds and two silvers, including her first women’s 50m freestyle title in a Games record 25.04sec. She also still holds eight – four individual and four relay – national records.

But she may face her biggest challenge yet in Filipino Kayla Sanchez, a 24-year-old Olympic medallist with Canada who is competing in five of Quah’s six events.

Now the oldest athlete in the Singapore team, Quah said: “I met Kayla a few times, when she also swam in the International Swimming League and Asian Games in 2023. She is a very fierce competitor and competition is good as it pushes all of us to want to be better, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Despite the obstacle, she is still expected to surpass 62 medals, although winning all six events to reach 40 golds is a long shot. Those medals will join the other 60 in their boxes “all over the place in my room and in the storeroom”.

Her longevity begs the question: Will she continue to compete to claim both records, with perhaps a fairy-tale ending at the 2029 Games in Singapore?

Quah said: “I would love to tell you that I’ll be swimming in Singapore in 2029. I would be 37 at that point and I don’t know if I’ll be able to swim the number of events there.

“Just because the mind is willing, sometimes I have to check in on my body if I’m able to do it. At that point, I’m hoping more of the younger ones will be taking most of the events and maybe I’ll swim like two or three events, but we’ll see.”