All 21 new records set by Team Singapore at the 31st SEA Games

Team Singapore clinched a total of 164 medals at the 31st SEA Games which took place from May 6 to 23 in Hanoi, Vietnam. Across the sports which Team Singapore competed in, a total of five SEA Games and 16 National records were broken by the swimming, finswimming and athletics team.

All five of the SEA Games records were broken by Team Singapore swimmers, including Teong Tzen Wei who broke two. Tzen Wei achieved a timing of 23.04s in the Men’s 50m Butterfly Finals and 21.93s in the Men’s 50m Freestyle Finals to break the respective Games records.

Tzen Wei’s timing for the Men’s 50m Freestyle Finals also broke the National record, making him the first Southeast Asian to go below the 22.0s mark in a men’s 50m Freestyle event.

Maximilian Ang Wei broke both the Games and National record for the Men’s 200m Breaststroke in the Finals, where he secured a timing of 2:11.93 to surpass the previous record of 2:12.57 held by Thailand’s Nuttampong Kettin. He also broke the National record for the Men’s 100m Breaststroke in the Finals where he finished with a timing of 1:01.58.

In the Women’s swimming events, Quah Jing Wen set a new Games and National record for the Women’s 200m Butterfly in the Finals with a timing of 2:09.52. She smashed the previous National record of 2:12.03 which she previously set in 2017.

Jing Wen is also the first Southeast Asian to go below the 2:10.00 mark in a women’s 200m Butterfly event.

Gan Ching Hwee also set the Games record for the Women’s 1500m Freestyle in the Finals with a timing of 16:36.73. She became the first winner of this event, which made its maiden appearance at the SEA Games this year.

Following the sport’s return to the SEA Games after 11 years, athletes from the Finswimming events broke a total of seven National records at the Games. 

Bernice Ting set a new record in the Women’s 100m Surface events where she secured a timing of 44.65s in the Heats before breaking it again in the Finals with a timing of 44.52s. She also broke the Women’s 50m Surface record in the Heats where she achieved a timing of 20.01s.

Two other National records were also broken in the Finswimming Surface events: the Women’s 800m record broken by Vanessa Ong in the Finals with a timing of 8:16.13 and the Men’s 50m Surface record broken by Lim Yao Xiang in the Finals with a timing of 45.88s.

In the Finswimming Bi-Fins events, the team of Ong Jun Han Jordan, Ong Rayen, Jamie Ang Hui Hsien and Vanessa Ong managed to break the Mixed 4x100m Relay National record in the Finals with a timing of 3:17.49.

Rayen also broke the Finswimming Bi-Fins 100m National record after finishing with a time of 45.88s in the Finals.

The athletics team managed to break five National records at the Games, with three of them coming from the Hurdles events.

Ang Chen Xiang and Quek Jun Jie Calvin broke the Men’s 110m and 400m Hurdles National record in the Finals after they finished with a timing of 13.94s and 51.19s respectively in the Finals.

Calvin beat the previous National record of 51.73s which he set earlier this year.

Nur Izlyn binte Zaini set a new Women’s 100m Hurdles National record after she secured a timing of 13.87s in the Finals.

She managed to surpass the previous National record of 13.92s which she set in 2019.

The men’s and women’s 200m National records were also broken after Lee Siong En Reuben and Pereira Veronica Shanti achieved a timing of 21.07s and 23.52s respectively in the event Finals.

With her new timing, Shanti beat the previous National record of 23.60s which she set in 2015 and managed to clinch Singapore’s second Gold medal in the women’s 200m event in seven years at the Games.

The 28th SEA Games which took place in Singapore in 2015 still stands as the country’s best performing SEA Games. Team Singapore managed to clinch a total of 259 medals (84 gold, 73 silver and 102 bronze) across 36 sports.