M’sians flop on opening day at worlds
Published on: Monday, July 22, 2019
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian swimmers led by Welson Sim (pic) were all knocked out in the heats on the opening day of the Fina World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, Sunday.
National ace Welson clocked 3 minutes 52.85 seconds in the men’s 400m freestyle to finish 4th in Heat 3, which was won by Dimitrios Negris from Greece with a time of 3:50.81s
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Welson’s time, which is 2.53s behind his national record of 3:50.32 set early this year, placed him 24th overall.
Three-time Olympic gold medallist and nine-time world champion Sun Yang of China won Heat 5 of the same event in 3:44.10s to emerge as the fastest qualifier overall.
Welson’s teammate Chan Jie also failed in the preliminary round, clocking 25.08s in the men’s 50m butterfly to finish 4th in Heat 5 and 54th overall. Heat 5 was won by Vladimir Stefanik of Slovakia in 24:47s.
Caeleb Dressel, a two-time Olympic gold medallist from the United States, clocked the fastest overall qualifying time when he won Heat 8 in 22.84s.
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The Malaysian quartet of Welson, Chan Jie, Tern Jian Han and Tia’a Faang Der finished 5th in Heat 1 of the men’s 4x100m freestyle with a time of 3:29.95s, which placed them 25th overall.
Heat 1 was won by the USA with a time of 3:11.31s. – Bernama