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TOKYO \u2013 One of the nation\u2019s most consistent performers in the pool, Gan Ching Hwee set yet another milestone on Sept 20, when she became the first Singaporean to win an Asian Games women\u2019s 1,500m freestyle silver with a time of 16min 0.45sec.<\/p>\n
Ahead of her at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, China\u2019s Li Bingjie retained gold in 15:53.52, while Japan\u2019s Ichika Kajimoto took bronze in 16:06.83.<\/p>\n
Gan is also the first Singaporean female swimmer to win an Asian Games medal since Roanne Ho clinched a 50m breaststroke silver in 2018.<\/p>\n
Previously, Neo Chwee Kok was the only Singaporean to win an Asiad medal over the same distance when he struck gold in the men\u2019s 1,500m freestyle at the inaugural edition in 1951.<\/p>\n
But the women\u2019s event was introduced at the Asian Games only in 2018 in Indonesia, where Gan finished fifth (16:39.70). She then improved to fourth (16:24.67) in China in 2023.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old\u2019s progress in the distance events over the years is clear as she now owns the national records in the women\u2019s 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m freestyle events as well as the 400m individual medley.<\/p>\n
At the SEA Games, she made history by completing a rare triple-triple of wins in the women\u2019s 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle across three consecutive editions in 2022, 2023 and 2025. The women\u2019s 1,500m freestyle is not contested at the regional Games.<\/p>\n
After finishing ninth (16:10.13) at the Paris 2024 Olympics in the women\u2019s 1,500m freestyle, she placed seventh (16:03.51) in the same event at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships after setting her national record of 16:0.1.29 in the heats, and fourth (16:06.00) at the 2026 Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n
Following her heroics on the opening day of the Asiad swim meet, Gan is slated to feature in the women\u2019s 400m freestyle (Sept 22), 4x200m freestyle relay (Sept 24) and 800m freestyle (Sept 25).<\/p>\n
At the last Games, Singapore bagged just one swimming medal through Teong Tzen Wei\u2019s men\u2019s 50m butterfly silver.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the swim meet, China\u2019s 13-year-old prodigy Yu Zidi set a new Games record when she won the women\u2019s 200m butterfly final in 2:05.08, ahead of teammate Chang Mohan (2:08.44) and Japan\u2019s Misa Okuzono (2:09.67). The teenager shaved almost half a second off compatriot Zhang Yufei\u2019s mark of 2:05.57 set in 2023.<\/p>\n
The home crowd had much to cheer about in a thrilling men\u2019s 200m individual medley final when Japan\u2019s lone Paris 2024 Olympics medallist Tomoyuki Matsushita pipped teammate Yumeki Kojima by 0.06 seconds to win in 1:55.30. China\u2019s defending champion Wang Shun was third in 1:57.14.<\/p>\n
Singapore\u2019s Reagen Cheng set a personal best of 2:01.25 in the morning heats, shaving almost a second off his previous best of 2:02.11, and finished 10th in 2:02.65.<\/p>\n
Dive into all the sporting action and trends in Singapore with ST\u2019s\u00a0weekly newsletter.<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n TOKYO \u2013 One of the nation\u2019s most consistent performers in the pool, Gan Ching Hwee set yet another milestone on Sept 20, when she became…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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