Toh Wei Soong won silver in the men’s 100m backstroke S7 at the Asian Para Games in Nagoya on Thursday, 22 October, his fourth medal of the Games after three bronzes. ActiveSG Circle reported from the pool that the 28-year-old touched in 1min 16.09sec at the Nagoya City General Gymnasium Rainbow pool.
A record falls in the heats
China’s Ruan Jingsong won gold in a Games record of 1:12.16. He had already taken Toh’s 2023 mark of 1:14.99 in the morning heats. India’s Tejas Nandakumar took bronze in 1:18.58.
For Toh, the defending champion, the time mattered more than the colour. “I felt really good about it. This is more like what I expect of myself,” he said. “It’s pretty satisfying, not necessarily for the colour, but for how hard I went out and fought, and the effort I put in, and the time I did.”
Eleven Games medals
The silver is Toh’s 11th Asian Para Games medal. He raced heats and a final on the same day for the first time at these Games. “For most of my career, heats to finals has usually been the format,” he said. “You don’t have any time to make mistakes.”
He has one race left: a title defence in the 50m freestyle S7 on Friday, 23 October. “I got my recovery routine down, so pretty happy with it,” he said.
National records in the pool
Sophie Soon set a national record of 32.97sec to finish sixth in the women’s 50m freestyle S13, her fourth race of the Games. Wong Zhi Wei set a national record of 26.55sec in the men’s 50m freestyle S13 final and finished fifth, with the 200m individual medley SM13 final to come on Friday. Danielle Moi set a national record of 1:12.33 in the heats of her event and placed eighth in the final in 1:12.95.
The Games run until Saturday, 24 October.
