Singapore’s Theon Zenway, ASEAN’s fastest swimmer, personally improved his 50m butterfly to the best of his ability to advance to his first FINA World Championships final.
On Saturday (June 18th), the 24-year-old scored 23.03 seconds, finishing fourth of eight swimmers in the second semifinal at Duna Arena in Budapest, Hungary, finishing seventh overall. became.
Earlier, he was ahead of Heat 8 when he came 6th out of 10 swimmers at 23.51. His previous personal best of 23.04 was set when he won the event at Hanoi SEA Games in May.
The final, in which he is the only Asian, will take place early on Monday (Singapore time).
The fastest finalists are 2017 winner Benjamin Proud (22.76) of the United Kingdom, followed by world champion Caeleb Dressel (22.79) of the United States. Italy’s Thomas Ceccon also recorded 22.79.
Theon has become the first Singaporean since Joseph Schooling won the 100m fly joint bronze in the 2017 edition and played in the final eight games of the final.
At the same tournament, also in Budapest, Schooling set a 22.93 Asian 50m fly record.
Teong has seen a sharp rise in recent years. At the Southeast Asian Games, he won a gold medal and set a ferocious national 50m freestyle record of 21.93 on his way to becoming the first man from the region in less than 22 seconds.
