First night thrills for swimming finals at Southeast Asian Games 2023

In the first night of the always popular swimming events, the Aquatic Centre at the Morodok Techo Stadium hosted five finals at the Southeast Asian Games 2023, which saw a meeting record, a two-time medal winner on the night, seven medals for Singapore, and a big roar for hosts Cambodia when they took part in their only event of Saturday's action (6th May), the 4x100m free relay.

The first event of the evening, the men’s 200m individual medley, saw Vietnam’s Tran Hung Nguyen defend his title in a time of 2:01.28, heading off Kaewsriyong Dulyawat of Thailand (2:02.25), also replicating his second-place finish position from Hanoi 2021. Third place went to Tan Zachary Ian of Singapore (2:02.42) who told Olympics.com afterwards: “It just felt great. I’m enjoying myself and good to have the bronze medal. I’ll be having more events, the 100m backstroke next and I hope to bring in more medals.”

The next event of the night was the women’s 200m butterfly final, where Jing Wen Quah started a family medal rush. Her brother Quah Zheng Wen won two medals later in the evening with his fellow Olympian sibling, Quah Ting Wen, the third of the trio, still to come. Jing Wen beat the Thai pair of Kamonchanok Kwanmuang and Jinjutha Pholjamjumrus into second and third, respectively.

Singapore dominated the men’s 100m freestyle final courtesy of Tan Jonathan Eu Jin (48.80) and Quah Zheng Wen (48.99), both with personal bests. They finished first and second, respectively. Quah dropped a spot from 2021, whereas Tan improved on his previous SEA Games effort after tying for second last time round with the third placed athlete today, Luong Jeremie Loic Nino of Vietnam (49.69).

Quah told us afterwards at poolside: "First race, so the nerves were there, plus we didn't really get a morning swim to settle in and that affected it a bit. But happy to get the first race out of the way, looking forward to the next races, the confidence is there."

The women’s blink-and-you-miss-it 50m breaststroke final saw Srisa-Ard Jenjira of Thailand win in a meeting record of 31.22. Sim Letitia En Yi kept up Singapore’s medal-winning evening with 31.62 while Malaysia’s Jinq En Phee, a two-time Olympian, took third (31.94).

"This is redemption for me,” said Jinq, “because I had a very bad Sea Games in Vietnam, so to win a medal in an event which I didn't win a medal there is something I can be happy about."

In the men’s 100m backstroke final, Quah Zheng Wen popped up again, minutes after his previous second place, to reach the top spot of the podium this time around, in 55.22 seconds. Tangkas Farrel Armandio of Indonesia came second (55.80), with Philippines’ Jacinto Jerard Dominic placing third (55.99).

There was a big roar at the first sighting of the hosts, who competed in the women’s 4x100m free relay, to chants of ‘Cam-bo-di-a’ echoing around the stadium. But it was Singapore who topped the standings in the last event of the day, in a time of 3:44.29. Philippines came second (3:47.96) and Thailand third (3:50.01).