No world c'ship medal but Teong sets 50m fly mark

Teong Tzen Wei fell short in his bid for Singapore's first medal at the world short-course swimming championships on Dec 11, though he still had reason to cheer with a national mark in the 50m butterfly.

- David Lee

Competing in Budapest, the 27-year-old clocked 21.97sec during the Dec 10 heats to shave 0.01sec off his previous record set at the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup on Nov 2. His new mark is also just one-hundredth of a second off China's Sun Jiajun's Asian record of 21.96sec.

In the semi-finals, he was fifth fastest in 22.04sec, while Switzerland's Noe Ponti took 0.07sec off his previous world record to 21.43sec. The Singaporean eventually finished seventh in the final in 22.11sec.

The 23-year-old Ponti won the gold in a blistering 21.32sec to lower his world mark for the second time in a day.

Canadian Ilya Kharun took silver in a new Americas record of 21.67sec, while Dutchman Nyls Korstanje rounded up the podium at the Duna Arena in 21.68sec.

Teong, who had the fastest reaction time of 0.58sec and was third at the turn, said: "It was a really fast final. I'm happy to be up there racing with the best in the world.