Gliding underneath, ready to surface

Gliding underneath, ready to surface

SINGAPORE- Darren Lim was trying to remain unnoticed in the middle of his swimming training two years ago.

Tired of the monotony of repetitive swim sets, the self-confessed "slacker" was constantly devising ways to skive.

Then aged 13, he would stop in the middle of a lap and quietly slip underwater to waited for his swim-mates to rejoin him.

However, his antics at Swimfast Aquatic Club did not escape his coach Gary Tan, who recalled: "He was really naughty and always playing around.

"It was really driving me crazy. His team-mates would also complain to me as they would also get affected when he was cheating during the sets."

Everything changed at Christmas 2011, when Tan and his assistant coach Richard Chng sat Darren down one evening after training to set him straight.

Said Tan: "It was Christmas, but I was stern. I told him to get his act together, I told him that he was driving me crazy."

Darren has an older sister, Shana Lim, who holds the national 50m backstroke record, and Tan used that as a motivational tool.

"I asked him to not live in Shana's shadow, to come out of his shell and not just be known as Shana's brother," the coach said.

"I think those words stuck with him. He made a 180-degree turn and today he is a totally different person."

The 1.78m Darren remembers that day well.

"They (Gary and Richard) just didn't give up on me," he said.

"I never knew I could be a fast swimmer."

In the short span of two years, he quickly proved his coaches right. Still only 15, he is already Singapore's fastest man in the pool.

The sprint specialist will make his SEA Games debut at the Dec 11-22 Games in Naypyidaw as the Republic's gold-medal hopeful in the blue-riband 50m freestyle.

He is part of a 24-member swim team who will be relied upon to deliver a gold rush again at the biennial meet. Singapore reigned supreme at the previous Games in Palembang, Indonesia, with 17 golds, nine silvers and 13 bronzes.

Darren, along with the likes of Quah Zheng Wen, 17, and Joseph Schooling, 18 - who is bidding for six golds - forms the spine of the latest generation of male local swim stars.

Only eight months from that fateful talk in December 2011, he set two new age-group records - clocking 52.87sec in the 100m free to rewrite the Under-14 mark and 23.87 in the 50m free to crack both the U-14 and U-17 times.

This June, however, he produced the swim lap that catapulted him into prominence - a 22.73 effort during the heats at the National Swimming Championships.

That made him the first Singaporean in 30 years, since national record holder Ang Peng Siong (22.69), to go under the 23-second barrier in the 50m free without the aid of the now-banned supersuit.

That timing remains the fastest in South-east Asia this year, yet the soft-spoken teenager is reluctant to talk about being the region's fastest man.

He said: "The title can make someone feel arrogant or proud, and I want to make sure it doesn't happen to me."

Nevertheless, he did become animated when asked about his 50m free routine.

He had one mantra: "When you think, you lose focus. So, you don't think."

Indeed, Darren's routine begins in the call room, before he even sees the pool. With his Sol Republic headphones on - made famous by Michael Phelps - and DJ Hardwell's music playing through them, the swimmer begins to focus on his imminent race.

From this moment on, he does not speak to anyone as he goes deep in thought. By the time he walks out to the blocks, he has already swum the race three times in his head.

His perfect swim lap: emerging from his dive between the 12m and 15m mark, taking his only breath of air three strokes after crossing the halfway point and, when he nears the 'T' which signals the end of the pool, glancing upwards to size up his remaining three strokes.

In a race that is won or lost by mere hundredths of a second, Darren knows that he will need to be perfect to win it.

He said: "I'm scared. Because right now I'm up there, and there are a lot of people who are trying to hunt me down."

One of those is 2011 Games silver medallist Triadi Fauzi, who clocked a new Indonesian record of 22.88 in September. The 2011 gold was won by Singapore's Arren Quek in 23.28.

And Darren is far from the finished product. For one, he needs to improve his weak underwater kicks, which he compensates for by surfacing as early as 8m after the dive to fully utilise his swimming speed.

Which is why, despite his rapid improvement since his slacker days, he prefers not to hype up his abilities as he prepares for the highly-competitive race. He said: "Anything can happen in the 50m free. I don't want to give the public too much hope and say that I will win the gold." Indeed, despite being older, wiser and faster, Darren is still trying to remain unnoticed.


Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of web browsers.