KUALA LUMPUR: National swimmer Phee Jinq En did well to break her own national record in the women's 50m breaststroke (short course) event at the Shanghai leg of the World Cup today (Oct 20).
Jinq En clocked 31.06 seconds to place fourth in her heat and seventh overall in the preliminaries this morning to qualify for the final.
Her timing also erased her former national mark of 31.08s, which she had set at the Malaysia Short Course Championships in July.
The 26-year-old would again clock 31.06s in the final this evening to place eighth. China's Tan Qianting took the gold in 28.76s while Italy's Benedetta Pilato (29.73s) and Hong Kong's Siobhan Haughey (29.74s) settled for silver and bronze respectively.
Earlier in the men's preliminaries today, Low Zheng Yong placed 23rd overall from 50 swimmers after clocking 24.54s in the men's 50m butterfly.
Hii Puong Wei placed 22nd from 30 swimmers in the men's 200m breaststroke after stopping the clock at 2:19.43s.
Khiew Hoe Yean was 12th fastest after clocking 1:45.49s in the men's 200m freestyle. Terence Ng was 18th (1:47.50s), Lim Yin Chuen was 20th (1:47.85s) while Welson Sim came in 23rd (1:51.07s). A total of 39 swimmers took to the pool for the event.
Only the top-eight swimmers qualified for the finals in each event.
In the women's 200m medley preliminaries, Tan Rouxin narrowly missed out on the final after coming in ninth (2:20.99s).
Rouxin, 18, had created history yesterday (Oct 19) by becoming the first Malaysian woman to win a medal in the World Cup series after claiming bronze in the 400m individual medley.
It was the first time Malaysia had won a medal in the World Cup series since Jeffrey Ong won silver (1,500m) in 1989.
The Johorean said she did not expect to win the medal.
"My goal was to better my own personal record but I was unable to do that, which is why I was surprised to be able to get a medal," said Rouxin.
"My main objective is to get more experience competing in short course races."
The World Cup is a short course series which utilises 25m pools.