2025 Southeast Asian Games
- December 10-15, 2025
- Sport of Authority of Thailand Pool, Bangkok
- LCM (50m)
- Results
Distance events were the name of the game on the third night of competition at the 2025 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.
The region’s reigning king of distance swimming, Huy Hoang Nguyen, headlined the session by five-peating the mile at these games. The 25-year-old Vietnamese national has won the event at every SEA Games from 2017 onwards, clocking a 15:19.58 tonight. On this occasion, Nguyen could not shoo off some relatively close competition. He took a three second lead ahead of his younger countryman Tran Tuan Anh Mai, and held that same length lead throughout the rest of the race. In the end, the pair went 1-2, though Nguyen was far from his 14:58.14 meet and national records.
In addition to the mile, two other distance events were contested in Bangkok today in the women’s 400 free and men’s 400 IM. The latter event served as yet another 1-2 punch for Vietnam. Quang Thuan Nguyen (4:19.98) and Hung Nguyen Tran (4:25.45) were the culprits, bringing the Vietnamese men to a total of five swimming golds.
The women’s 400 free went to Ching Hwee Gan, who stopped the clock in 4:11.88. This represents a two second add from the 4:09.81 national record she blasted on home soil at this summer’s World Championships.
Though distance dominated the night’s line-up, North America trained sprint stars Mikkel Lee and Kayla Sanchez made the most of their singular sprint opportunities.
Lee anchored Singapore to a decisive gold in the men’s 4×100 medley relay, splitting 48.09. He stood on top of the podium alongside Zhen Wen Quah, Chun Ho Chan, Jonathan Tan.
This marks a third consecutive day of impressive swims for the IU-trained Lee, who came into the meet with a 49.10 lifetime best. From a flat start, he produced a 48.65 on the first day in Bangkok.
Sanchez claimed the only individual sprint event: the women’s 100 free. The Filipina Canadian is swimming in her first SEA Games after switching over from the Great White North in 2023. She delivered a 54.82 for her first individual gold of the games. Heather White made it 1-2 for the Philippines with her 55.36 second place outing.
Ting Wen’s longevity in the 100 free needs to be studied. I think very few people in this region wld be consistent with times like this, let alone in the long run.
I also think she did something that is quite similar to her 2017 SEA Games run in that event
(her relay leg also outsplit everyone else in the field with the exception of Kayla)