Quah Zheng Wen fails to qualify for semi-finals of 200m fly

Quah Zheng Wen's hopes of qualifying for the men's 200m butterfly final at the world championships were dashed yesterday, after the Singaporean clocked 1min 59.10sec in the morning heats.

He was 27th in a field of 47 and missed out on a semi-final spot.

Quah's time was well off his personal best of 1:56.01 set at the 2016 Rio Olympics and over two seconds slower than his last outing at the world meet in Budapest, Hungary, two years ago. He was 18th then after clocking 1:56.76.

Quah, a third-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, had chosen to focus on his pet event, the 200m fly, at this year's meet in a bid to make the top eight.

At the last world championships, he did not progress from the heats in all his five events - 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke, 100m and 200m fly.

"I am very disappointed with my performance, but I am putting these feelings aside so that I can put my 100 per cent in the relays coming up," said Quah, who is pencilled in for the men's 4x200m freestyle and 50m backstroke on Friday and Saturday respectively.

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"I've learnt a lot about things I can improve on and it's not over yet," added the 22-year-old, who is competing in his third world championships.

Singapore head coach and performance director Stephan Widmer said: "Zheng Wen could not find the zone today to go out and execute the race plan. His 200m fly this morning was definitely not what he is capable of.

"He is a great racer, he can attack and that's what he needs to do more confidently for his next individual races and the relays."

Singapore's swimmers have had a mixed outing at the world meet, with Olympic champion Joseph Schooling, 24, missing out on the men's 50m fly semi-finals on Sunday after he clocked 23.73 to be 20th overall.

But he made up for the disappointment when he linked up with Quah, Jonathan Tan and Darren Chua to set a national record of 3:16.66 in the men's 4x100m free to be 18th overall.

The women's 4x100m free team of sisters Quah Ting Wen and Jing Wen, Cherlyn Yeoh and Christie Chue also set a national record of 3:43.11. They finished 17th overall and did not qualify for the final.