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Speedy Teong chases a degree in time
Fast, strong, and focused, the 67 Singaporeans in nine sports competing at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham are an uncommon breed. The Straits Times looks at six athletes who are unique in their own ways - in choice of professions, personal lives or their sporting journeys. Ahead of the quadrennial event's opening today, we look at swimmer Teong Tzen Wei, who dropped out of university to focus on sport.
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Teong Tzen Wei's life is decided by shavings of a second and slivers of time. A hair's breadth, you might say, or the length of an untrimmed fingernail. Last month he lowers his 50m butterfly personal best by 0.01 of a second. This is living on the liquid edge.
Teong's life is a rush, a thrill, a blur, a buzz. If marathon runners are the equivalent of long movies, then he's a TikTok dude. His world is concise, it is 50m, 36 strokes in the freestyle, 19 for the butterfly, and not even a single breath. So really there's no point in asking him this, but let's do it anyway.
