World Aquatics World Cup #1 – Baku
The first event of the first stop of the 2026 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup saw a national record go down, as on-fire Ching Hwee Gan of Singapore delivered the best time of her career in the women’s 400m freestyle.
Although she landed off the podium to place 5th overall, the 23-year-old former Indiana University Hoosier delivered a mark of 4:01.94 to destroy her former PB and national standard.
That prior result stood at the 4:04.17 she turned in during the heats of the 4free event at the 2024 Short Course World Championships to place 14th overall.
The podium in this evening’s race in Baku included Great Britain’s Freya Colbert, who touched in 3:59.91, followed by American Anna Peplowski and China’s Yao Tiaoshan, who captured the minor medals. The former hit 4:00.47 to the latter’s 4:00.70.
As for Gan, her powerful performance is par for the course for the ace, who surprised with a trio of silver medals at this year’s Asian Games, which only just concluded last Friday.
There in Tokyo, the multi-Southeast Asian (SEA) Games medalist secured her first-ever Asian Games medals, reaping silvers across the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle events, proving she’s leveled up at this point in her career.
Gan’s times checked in at 4:06.81 in the 400m, 8:26.25 in the 800m and 16:00.45 in the 1500m, bringing her nation its only medals of the entire swimming competition.
