Quah Ting Wen will not represent Singapore at the Paris Olympics later this month despite being confirmed last week as a member of the nation’s 4×100 medley relay.
Quah split 55.00 swimming freestyle on the anchor leg of Singapore’s 4×100 medley relay at the 2024 World Championships, where the team qualified for the Olympics with a 9th-place finish in a national record of 4:02.88. Rising Michigan senior Letitia Sim was the only member of the Singaporean quartet with an Olympic ‘A’ cut in an individual event (1:06.36 100 breast), but World Aquatics reportedly granted an exemption last week to allow three relay-only swimmers instead of two.
“After signing everything on Thursday, I took out my luggage and I was like, let’s get going (to Paris),” the 31-year-old Quah told Channel News Asia (CNA).
However, just one day after confirming Singapore’s 4×100 medley relay team of Quah, Quah’s sister, Jing Wen (58.89 butterfly), Sim (1:06.41 breaststroke), and Sim’s sister, Levenia (1:02.58 backstroke leadoff), World Aquatics reportedly reached out to Singapore Aquatics (SAQ) with an update.
Rising Indiana senior Ching Hwee Gan earned an Olympic invite courtesy of her ‘B’ cut in the 1500 free (16:10.61) from last month, but SAQ would have to choose between sending either Gan or one of the relay-only swimmers to Paris. After discussion, SAQ picked Gan and told Quah she would be unexpectedly staying home this summer.
“SAQ’s Selection Committee met and considered all permutations for the best outcome for the relay team of Letitia, Gan, and two more relay-only swimmers,” SAQ said in a statement. “The committee decided on the following line-up: backstroke (Levenia), breaststroke (Letitia), butterfly (Jing Wen) and freestyle (Gan).”
While the decision allows another Singaporean swimmer to contest an individual Olympic event, it will likely be a major blow to the nation’s 4×100 medley relay. Gan’s best 100 free time is just 58.74 from 2021 while Quah owns the national record at 54.62 from 2019. Last year, Quah was honored as the top athlete of the 2023 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games after winning six gold medals.
Quah protested to SAQ, which appealed to World Aquatics to allow the country to send six Olympic swimmers to Paris this summer. However, SAQ confirmed on Monday that the appeal was rejected.
“It would have been ideal if we could have sent six athletes to the Games,” SAQ president Mark Chay said. “We made our case to World Aquatics that in addition to the two OQT swimmers and an OCT swimmer, sending the relay team that met the Olympics qualifying position would allow Singapore to send our best possible swimmers to the Olympics.”
The lone male swimmer representing Singapore at the Paris Olympics is Jonathan Tan. The 22-year-old hit the qualifying time in the 50 free (21.91) at last year’s SEA Games. His lifetime best in the 100 free (48.80) is only about half a second shy of Joseph Schooling‘s national record (48.27 from 2016 Olympics).
Singaporean Olympic Roster
- Jonathan Tan (men’s 50 free, 100 free)
- Letitia Sim (women’s 100 breast, 200 breast, and 4×100 medley relay)
- Ching Hwee Gan (women’s 800, 1500 free, and 4×100 medley relay)
- Levenia Sim (women’s 4×100 medley relay)
- Quah Jing Wen (women’s 4×100 medley)
I think one issue is that Singapore Aquatics confirmed their Olympic roster with the athletes before the deadline for OCT invites. The same issue happened in 2021 where Gan was given the B cut invitation for the 1500, but after Quah was invited via the universality spot, which resulted in Quah appealing to change the selection protocol. At the end of the day, it sucks for Quah to be told that her spot is being taken away, but also Gan was not able to go to the 2021 olympics due to a selection issue with Quah, and should be given her chance to compete
I don’t think SAQ had a choice. The guidelines say that relays are to be confirmed by an earlier deadline, before the B invites. Ting Wen admitted to this in her latest CNA interview too
So WA needed all relay spots to be confirmed first in order to finalise the number of spots issued, before they are able to issue B invites to fill up the remaining quota.
Prior to the deadline, SG would not have been able to finalise the relay squad if they did not get the exception to send 3 relay only swimmers, only with the exception could they confirm the relay team to be submitted to WA.
The irony is, once they confirmed the relay squad, WA then proceeded to issue the B invites and Gan received one.
Now WA says the exemption was given because you did not have enough individual qualified swimmers to form your team. But now you… Read more »
NOOOOO RIP NICK MA
Hes not dead…he’ll be back
So here’s the situation:
Singapore qualified one relay for the Olympics, and qualifying one relay means you can bring up to 2 relay-only athletes. I guess Ching Hwee Gan wasn’t expected to qualify individually with her OCT so Letitia was supposed to be the sole individual qualifier. Obviously a relay needs 4 people so Singapore petitioned for an exemption to be allowed 3 relay swimmers and it was granted.
Then it turns out Ching does qualify individually, so now the exemption doesn’t really make sense since they only need 2 relay-only swimmers to fill out the relay. World Aquatics realized they kinda messed up by preemptively granting the exemption so they let Singapore decide what they want to… Read more »
Letitia is definitely expected to do double breast Individually but for Johnny getting 2 individual freestyle events is surprising for me.
Instagram users and Facebook users on the other hand….
8 years ago, tingwen speaks out for her younger brother on her priv Facebook which was apparently spread to public by someone else.
Now Zheng Wen speaks for her elder sister and he is clearly pissed with the mismanagement and lack of transparency.
I feel that this controversy kinda of OVERSHADOWS the upward trend progress of the SG athletics side in which records were broken.
I’m not sure the rule book clearly says that if a country gets a B cut invite, they have to give up any discretionary relay spot given. It sucks to be told officially you can go, then have it taken away.
Having said that, if Singapore swimming basically only had one choice, their hands were tied. But yes, the offer to Quah should not have be rescinded. It’s ugly
They literally jumped over the gun by accepting B cut after receiving the discretion of having 3rd relay only swimmer basically
I blame this situation more on the rules tbh. Why issue a B cut invite if you knew you already offered a discretionary relay spot (which was accepted), and that you basically want the country to choose one or the other?
I don’t fault Ting for lodging her appeals, but I also do not fault Ching Hwee for accepting her spot. It’s the original guidelines that I think resulted in this situation. And Ting Wen became the sacrificial lamb because she happens to be in a stroke that Ching Hwee can replace (yes, I know Ching Hwee is long distance)
Katie Ledecky did the 4x100m free relay before. Idk how is Ching Hwee’s mom feeling right now. If the team came last, its on Mark Chay.
U can’t simply break the quota rule to just add more ppl by appealing
well part of the issue is that Singapore Aquatics confirmed with the individual athletes before the deadline of B cut invitation…. They had to confirm relay only swimmers with World Aquatics but they should not have confirmed with the athletes prior to the B cut invitation deadline.
the rule book only allows them 2 relay-only swimmers to begin with, they were just granted an extra because otherwise they wouldn’t have enough people to fill out a relay, at least until Ching turned out to qualify with her B cut
I do understand that. I just feel it was poor form to take away a spot after already confirming it, discretion or not. I don’t blame both girls for their choice of actions.
it’s just a bad lose lose overall, the other outcome is that Ching rightfully qualified for the Olympics but doesn’t get to be on the team because WA made an error and let Singapore have a third relay swimmer. But I think the lesser of the two is to allow the one who rightfully qualified (Ching) instead of the one who should not have been told she’d make the team in the first place (WA should’ve held back from allowing the exemption until all B-cut invites were issued)
Ofc ideally they’d both be on the team but Singapore didn’t have any control over that
Wow. What a mess.
Absolutely one of the worst things I’ve ever read, if you tell someone they’re going to the Olympics, they HAVE to go.
So there will be B cut swimmers invited then?
There are some people from different countries invited for B cut due to not enough ppl
You can look at it at totallympics.com