On Friday (29 Sep), the Singapore women’s 4x100m medley relay team was ecstatic to finish third in the final — only to learn that they had been disqualified from the Asian Games 2023 event entirely.
The heartbreaking disqualification was due to Quah Ting Wen jumping early by 0.1 seconds during the final freestyle leg.
She has since taken to Instagram to pen an apology for her teammates and followers. In addition, she stated that the pain from losing out on winning bronze “will hurt a very great deal.”
On 29 Sep, sisters Levenia Sim and Letitia Sim, along with fellow sibling duo Quah Jing Wen and Quah Ting Wen, participated together in the women’s 4x100m medley relay final.
Finishing third in the race behind first-placed Japan and second-placed South Korea, they thought they’d secured a bronze for Team Singapore.
Source: Singapore Aquatics on Facebook
However, their excitement was cut short when they were subsequently disqualified.
According to official results on the Asian Games 2023 website, Ting Wen had jumped 0.1 seconds early in the final freestyle leg during the handover from her sister, Jing Wen.
Source: CNA on YouTube
As a result, Hong Kong moved up to third place in the event and won the bronze medal instead of Singapore.
The team appeared distraught upon hearing the news, with Ting Wen seeming inconsolable.
On 30 Sep, Ting Wen took to Instagram to apologise for her early jump that led to the disqualification.
Source: CNA on YouTube
She shared that even when her teammates began celebrating finishing in third place, there was a “sinking feeling” in her heart due to a suspicion that she had slipped up.
“In my heart I have a sinking feeling,” she said, adding that she’d done enough relays to know that she’d done something very wrong.
“I am scared, I don’t dare to be happy yet. I keep praying it will be okay. But I am wrong.”
She recounted,
The image printed in my mind is watching three of my teammates in pure joy… before watching them [be] stripped off of it because of a mistake I made.
The last time she made such a mistake was when she was seven, she said.
“I’m writing this to try to stop reliving the moment,” Ting Wen continued. “I’m writing this to express the remorse I feel and the shame I carry and the blame I bear.”
Expressing her anger, heartbreak and disappointment, she said that most of it was for not trusting herself to wait. Ting Wen also said that she had swum the relay numerous times with her sister.
“I wanted it so badly I lost control,” she explained.
In her apology, Ting Wen shared a picture of herself after her arrival at the Asian Games. As it was the 31-year-old’s fifth and last time at the Games, she wanted to “do something good.”
Source: @quahtingwen on Instagram
Instead, she felt that she wasted such an opportunity at the medley relay final.
Ting Wen expressed her desire to leave the Games with something tangible for her and her teammates, saying she especially wanted to prove to herself that she made the right choice with swimming in her life.
“Sometimes I am not strong enough to survive on just self-belief,” she noted.
I want to thank and also apologize to everyone who was supporting us here and all the way back home. I find it hard to look into anyone’s eyes.
Ting Wen added that time would help her heal from the pain of losing out on bronze for the event eventually.
“Eventually I will move on and try to come out of this stronger,” she said. “But just for a little while this pain will hurt a very great deal.”
Also read: Shanti Pereira Wins Silver At Asian Games 100m Event, S’pore’s 1st Medal In 49 Years
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Featured image adapted from @quahtingwen on Instagram and CNA on YouTube.
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