Schooling, Ting Wen cruise to victory
Swimming stars qualify for SEA Games 100m fly events with ease
Joseph Schooling cruised to victory in the 100m butterfly, his pet event, at the Singapore National Age Group Swimming Championships at OCBC Aquatic Centre on Friday.
Representing the Chinese Swimming Club, the 24-year-old touched home first in 52.70sec in the super final and, in the process, met the "A" mark for this year's SEA Games in the Philippines.
Teong Tzen Wei (53.60s) and Jonathan Tan (54.31s) of AquaTech Swimming finished second and third respectively.
Schooling had earlier qualified for the Fina World Championships to be held in Gwangju, South Korea, in July with his Asian Games gold medal-winning time of 51.04s.
Speaking after the competition, national head coach and Singapore Swimming Association's performance director, Stephan Widmer, said: “Joseph had a go at it today, and he did many great things today and approached the race really well.
"He had a goal that he wanted to see today, which was not really the timing that was clocked. They are competitive athletes so you can see on their faces when things do not go their way. We wanted to see where we are right now and from there, we can make judgment calls for the future.
“In many areas, he is in a good position, his strength, his body alignment and so from here on, we have to keep on building the physiology side of swimming, the aerobic skills to speed and power development."
Also meeting the "A" cut for the SEA Games was Swimfast Aquatic Club’s Quah Ting Wen, who touched home first in the super final of the women’s 100m butterfly with a time of 59.28s.
In second place was Jamie Koo of Aquatic Performance Swim Club with a time of 1:01.14s. Philippine swim star Jasmine Alkhadi finished third in 1:01.82s.
In the women’s 50m backstroke super final, Koo finished third in 29.34s, which saw her meet the SEA Games "A" mark.
Winning the race was Japanese Yumi Shuno in a time of 28.98s, and Carmen Weiler from Nexus Swim Team was second in 29.20s. Singapore's Hoong En Qi of Swimfast was fourth in 29.37s, which also saw her meet the SEA Games "A" mark.
Schooling is scheduled to take part in the 50m butterfly on Saturday, and the 50m freestyle and 200m butterfly on Sunday.
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