SINGAPORE – Just a day after breaking the women’s 100m breaststroke national record and qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics, Singaporean swimmer Letitia Sim bettered her own 50m breaststroke national mark by 0.23sec on Dec 1.

She clocked 30.92sec in the heats of the Japan Open to finish behind Australia’s Chelsea Hodges (30.31sec) and Japan’s Satomi Suzuki (30.91sec).

Sim eventually placed fourth in the final in 31.13sec at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

She also holds the national records for the 200m breaststroke and 200m individual medley.

On Nov 30, Singapore’s breaststroke queen had clocked 1min 6.36sec to rewrite her own record of 1:06.86 in the 100m breaststroke to qualify for the Olympics en route to clinching the silver behind home favourite Reona Aoki (1:06.24).

Japan’s Kanako Watanabe (1:07.16) took the bronze.

After dipping below the Olympic “A” qualifying time of 1:06.79, Sim became the second Singaporean swimmer to qualify for the 2024 Games, after Jonathan Tan made the cut in the men’s 50m freestyle at the Cambodia SEA Games in May.

The University of Michigan student, 20, said of the feat: “Going into tonight, I knew I had a really good swim in the morning. It was one of my better swims...

“In the past, I struggled a lot to get it going in the morning.

“So, being able to see that time and be seeded first and also knowing that I was in a good position going into finals really gave me a little bit of confidence.”

National Training Centre assistant coach Gustavo Schirru had told her to “go out there and have fun”, which helped ease the pressure she put on herself to meet the qualifying time.

Sim said: “The past few meets, I’ve been super, super close to this cut, and I knew I was right there. I just didn’t know when I would be getting the cut.

“At first, I didn’t look up at the scoreboard to see my time, just because I didn’t want to be disappointed by falling short again.

“Knowing I got the cut by quite a margin was really, really exciting and gave me a lot of confidence and there was a lot of adrenaline.”

Earning her ticket to Paris was a much-needed boost for Sim, who missed out on a medal not once, but thrice, at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

She was fourth in the 100m and 200m breaststroke, while her women’s 4x100m medley relay team were disqualified after finishing third.

When asked about being called Singapore’s breaststroke queen, Sim said: “I don’t think I deserve that title, I just think it’s very funny.

“I don’t think I’m the queen of anything because I was raised by a typical Singaporean mum and she always said that if you think you’re good, someone else is always better.”

In December, she will link up with her teammates at a training camp in Muscat, Oman, ahead of February’s World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar.

With Olympic qualification in the bag, Sim says she can now just “focus on trying to find ways to get even faster”.

She is also hoping for more company at the Paris Games, adding: “Hopefully in Doha, we can qualify a relay and have more people go to the Olympics.”