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Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
After hovering in the 22-low range for more than three years, Jonathan Tan has finally broken through in the men’s 50 freestyle.
Competing at the 2023 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games this past week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tan broke the 22-second barrier for the first time in his career, lowering the Singaporean Record to boot.
Tan clocked a time of 21.91 in the prelims, breaking the one-year-old National Record of 21.93 set by Teong Tzen Wei at the 2022 SEA Games in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Tan, 21, followed up by winning the final in 21.95, giving him two sub-22 swims after consistently producing 22.2s dating back to 2019.
Tan placed fifth in the 50 free at the 2019 World Junior Championships in a time of 22.50, and actually broke Joseph Schooling‘s Singaporean Record in the prelims, clocking 22.46.
Tan, 17 at the time, then got down to 22.25 at the SEA Games that were held in December of that year.
He then consistently produced 22-low swims through 2022, just falling shy of cracking the elusive barrier:
Tan’s Fastest 50 Free By Year
- 2018 – 22.85
- 2019 – 22.25
- 2020 – 22.42
- 2021 – 22.12
- 2022 – 22.24
Earlier this year, Tan went 22.35 in February and then 22.22 in March, signaling he was on good form leading into the SEA Games in May.
That proved to be true and then some, as he broke through with his 21.91 swim in the prelims, not only marking a sizeable personal best and a new National Record, but also putting him under the ‘A’ cut for both the 2023 World Championships (22.12) and the 2024 Olympic Games (21.96).
He also swam a lifetime best of 48.80 in the 100 free, claiming victory over Zheng Wen Quah (48.99).
Tan is set to join the Stanford Cardinal in the fall, having announced his commitment in December 2022.
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