Jing Wen must boost recovery time: Widmer

After rewriting the national women’s 200m individual medley record on Sunday, the next step for US-based national swimmer Quah Jing Wen is to learn how to recover quickly during meets, said national head coach and performance director Stephan Widmer.

The Texas A&M University second-year undergraduate clocked 2min 16.30sec in the 200 IM heats on the final day of the Canadian Swimming Trials at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre to better the previous mark of 2:16.85 set by Samantha Yeo at the 2017 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.

Quah, 18, finished third in her morning heat and ninth overall, but did not compete in the B final later that evening. She could not be contacted for comment.

“It’s crucial to have the ability of swimming fast but then recovering to come back the same or next day for the semi-finals or finals,” Widmer told The Straits Times.

“If you want to be on the international scene, particularly the world championships and Tokyo 2020 (Olympics), the more you’ll need this and her coaches have to figure it out because I don’t believe it’s there now.”

With her time, Quah has met the B-cuts for July’s Fina World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, and the Tokyo Games.

The A-cut timings for the world championships and Olympics are 2:13.03 and 2:12.56 respectively.

Widmer also highlighted the importance of Quah finding the right balance between training and school commitments.

“She has to figure out nutrition, studying, training, and balancing all these things is not an easy task,” he said. “But great athletes figure it out and, the more you want it, the more likely you will find the right balance.

“Each individual has a different balance and you can only learn from experience. The coaches have to provide that feedback for that individual and I’m sure they will be on the journey to find more individual answers for Jing Wen.”

On Saturday, Quah clocked 2:14.64 in the 200m butterfly B final to finish second behind Ohio State University’s Kathrin Demler (2:12.74). She also swam in the 100m butterfly heats on Friday, clocking 59.95 to finish 10th.

Her older brother, 22-year-old Zheng Wen, also competed in Toronto and won the 200m butterfly B final in 1:59.19 on Saturday.

The University of California, Berkeley third-year undergraduate finished second in both the 100m backstroke B final (56.13) and the 100m butterfly B final (52.42).

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