SINGAPORE – With three national records in two days as well as a final berth on home soil, distance swimmer Gan Ching Hwee shone at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH) in Singapore.

, however, was a rare bright spot for the hosts. No one else from the 16-member Singapore swimming team reached the semi-finals at the WCH Arena, with national coach and performance director Gary Tan labelling it a “good wake-up call” for the rest.

Rating the campaign a “soft” seven out of 10, he told The Straits Times on Aug 3: “Could we have seen more semi-finalists? We definitely had more semi-finalists in Doha (2024 WCH) and an Olympic qualifier. This time, we only had one girl in the finals and no semi-finalists.”

Swatting away suggestions that the swimmers were focusing on the year-end SEA Games instead, Tan said: “We were gunning for this. We did whatever we could in our best capacity to prepare them in the best way possible.

“But again, swimming is like this. There will always be days that you’ll fall short, and unfortunately it had to happen in Singapore when we missed out on maybe three or four chances to make evening swims.”

At the 2024 WCH in Doha, the women’s 4x100m medley relay team comprising two pairs of sisters – Quah Ting Wen and Jing Wen as well as Letitia and Levenia Sim –

set a national record in the heats

to clinch a historic qualification for the Paris Olympics.

Letitia (200m medley, 100m and 200m breaststroke), Teong Tzen Wei (50m butterfly) and Jing Wen (200m fly) also reached the semi-finals.

The Republic did not have any semi-finalist at the 2023 meet in Fukuoka while at the 2022 edition in Budapest, Teong finished eighth in the 50m fly final, with Jing Wen reaching the 100m fly semi-finals.

At the 2025 WCH, Gan won her 400m free heat and finished 13th overall in 4min 9.81sec to break Lynette Lim’s record of 4:11.24 set in 2009.

A day later, she smashed two more national records and clinched a spot in the 1,500m free final to become the first female Singapore swimmer to compete in a world championship final since Tao Li finished seventh in the 50m fly in 2007.

Her time of 16:01.29 in the heats was almost nine seconds under the 16:10.13 she swam in the 2024 Olympics heats, while her front 800m split of 8:29.93 was also a national record – her previous best at Paris 2024 was 8:32.37.

Gan finished seventh in 16:03.51 in the final, which was won by American legend Katie Ledecky. In the 800m free heats, she clocked 8:31.36 to finish 13th out of 30 overall.

Gan Ching Hwee clocked 8:31.36 in the 800m free heats to finish 13th out of 30 overall.

ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI

Tan noted that Gan had prepared for the meet with a clear, year-long plan and others were also preparing, but without the same clarity or intensity which was needed post-Olympics, as performance standards have shifted. Reaching the final now required not just hard work, but a willingness to push beyond limits.

“Hopefully her swim will inspire the others to say ‘we can do that as well’, but I think they needed a good wake-up (call),” he added.

“This is a good wake-up call for us going into SEA Games and Asian Games because, to be frank, if the others apart from Ching are happy with that performance... we would have lost the plot.

“But I know for a fact that all of them have gone back and really thought about it and reflected about how well they need to be... they are actually having a bit more clarity as to what they need to do.”

Besides Gan, Quah Zheng Wen has also shown some form, coming close to all three of his national backstroke records.

On Aug 2, the 28-year-old clocked his best (25.38sec) in the men’s 50m since setting the national record of 25.13 in 2015. 

In the 100m, he registered 54.39sec, 0.6 of a second off his national record of 53.79sec. In the 200m back, his 2:00.58 effort was also within a second of the 1:59.49 national record he set in 2017.

Quah Zheng Wen came close to all three of his national backstroke records.

PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO

There were some who struggled with injuries or self-doubt.

Tan noted that Teong – who recorded 23.38sec in the 50m fly heats, just off his 23.03 personal best – was still dealing with an elbow issue.

Letitia, who clocked 2:27.91 in her 200m breaststroke heat – more than three seconds behind her 2:24.15 national record – mentioned that she was struggling with self-doubt.

Calling on swimmers and coaches to heed the lessons from the 2025 WCH, Tan said the fraternity needs to “work harder, work smarter, work more efficiently and intentfully” ahead of the next big assignments – the Dec 9-20 SEA Games in Thailand and the 2026 Asian Games in Japan.

“I think we are going to go back as a coaching group, to really reassess how to get them better,” said Tan.

“We still didn’t perform up to the mark that I wanted them to, and at the end of the day, our saving grace was Ching.”

More on this topic

The 2025 WCH saw Singapore field a 72-strong contingent,

their largest at the world meet

.

Besides the 16 swimmers, there were also 10 divers, nine artistic swimmers, eight open water swimmers, and the men and women’s water polo squads.

Singapore Aquatics president Kenneth Goh said he was proud of how the Singapore contingent performed on home soil and noted that there were milestones across disciplines.

He highlighted Gan’s campaign, how the open water swimmers finished as South-east Asia’s top performers, 14-year-old Ainslee Kwang becoming the first Singaporean diver

, the artistic swimming duet team finishing 14th with a new personal best, and the men’s water polo team beating South Africa to secure their maiden victory on the world stage.

Goh added that while these breakthrough moments were savoured, “we would have liked to have more personal bests and new national records to celebrate”.

He added: “These championships reinforced that sustained success comes from building depth and resilience over the long term.

“We will continue to strengthen access to world-class coaching, sport science and technical expertise across all disciplines.

“The right competition exposure is critical, and our athletes need regular opportunities to compete and spar against top-tier opponents so that competing at that level becomes normalised.”

Additional reporting by David Lee