Singapore, Hong Kong Secure Spots in Olympic Women’s Medley Relay

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In one of the deepest and most-competitive event fields heading toward the Paris Olympic Games, there was surprisingly-little movement for Olympic qualification in the women’s 400 medley relay.

Singapore swam 4:02.88 in prelims at the 2024 World Championships, ranking them 9th. After not swimming the race at last year’s World Championships, that jumped them into 15th place in the two-meet rankings and into the Olympic Games.

The sister-sister relay of Levenia Sim (1:02.58 – back), Letitia Sim (1:06.41 – breast), Quah Jing (58.89 – fly), and Quah Ting (55.00 – free) took more than four seconds off the National Record set at last year’s Southeast Asian Games. The 17-year-old Levenia Sim was a big difference maker –  she was almost two second better than Faith Khoo was leading off last year. Her older sister Letitia Sim was almost responsible for almost a second of that drop, while Quah Ting dropped 1.3 seconds.

That group makes history as the first-ever Singapore relay to qualify for the Olympics on merit. Singapore received universality places for men’s relays at the 1988 and 1996 Olympic Games.

Hong Kong swam 4:02.34, improving their 16th-place 4:04.89 from last year’s World Championships. Top 16 go, but they would have been bumped by Singapore if they had not improved their time.

South Africa swam 4:03.54 in prelims in Doha, making them first-relay out in spite of Erin Gallagher having a big meet. A weakness in the backstroke and freestyle legs for South Africa couldn’t be made up with the middle two legs; breaststroker Lara van Niekerk split 1:07.50, slower than her individual times.

RELAY SELECTION PROCEDURE (IN BRIEF)

The top 3 finishing relays from the 2023 World Championships automatically qualified. The next 13 slots come from the best times among the combination of heats and finals at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships.

That means the field is set, pending countries declining their selections or any special dispensations made for Israel.

There is no host country automatic allocation for the Olympics and France is already qualified thanks to their time from 2023 Worlds. Unlike in past years, there is no “free-for-all” best times in the qualifying period to worry about, so the field should be set at this point, with the exception of any scratches.

The Field – Women’s 400 Medley Relay