Singapore swimmer Gan Ching Hwee wins her third silver medal of 2026 Asian Games

TOKYO – There was one final flourish for Team Singapore on the last day of the Asian Games swim meet as Gan Ching Hwee made it a hat-trick of medals by winning silver in 8min 26.25sec in the women’s 800m freestyle on Sept 25.

The 23-year-old also improved on her previous national record of 8:29.56 set via her first 800m in her 1,500m race on Sept 19 at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

Meanwhile, China’s Li Bingjie retained her 800m gold in 8:24.02, while Japan’s Ichika Kajimoto bagged the bronze in 8:27.37.

Gan had earlier won the women’s 1,500m and 400m freestyle silvers – also eclipsing her previous national records in the process – her exploits over 800m makes her the first Singaporean swimmer to claim three individual medals at the Asian Games since Joseph Schooling.

Elaine Sng and Junie Sng also won three individual medals each at the 1974 and 1978 Asiads respectively, while Patricia Chan bagged five in 1970.

While Gan’s treble helped the national swimming team surpass the sole men’s 50m butterfly silver won by Teong Tzen Wei at the last Asiad in China three years ago, she was still their only medallist from a 29-man squad with 19 debutants and an average age of 20.

Following Olympic champion Joseph Schooling’s retirement in 2024, breaststroke specialist Letitia Sim’s surprise move to hang up her goggles in May, and the decision by the Quah siblings – Ting Wen, Zheng Wen and Jing Wen – to pursue postgraduate studies, the national swimmers are currently in a transition phase.

Against this backdrop, they have put up a creditable performance to register 25 final entries, six national records and 17 personal bests, compared to 32 final entries, five national records and 14 personal bests in 2023.

On the international front, China continued their absolute domination of the pool, while hosts Japan did well to recover from a disappointing previous outing to reclaim second spot at South Korea’s expense.

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David Lee is senior sports correspondent at The Straits Times, focusing on aquatics, badminton, basketball, cue sports, football and table tennis.