Singapore kayaker Stephenie Chen through to semi-finals on Olympic debut

PARIS – Singapore kayaker Stephenie Chen marked her Olympic debut by finishing fifth out of eight in the women’s K1 500m quarter-final 1 in 1min 53.88sec at Vaires-sur-Marne on Aug 7.

In the process, she advanced to the Aug 10 semi-finals as one of the five fastest athletes in each of the four quarter-finals.

Earlier in the day, the 32-year-old finished fifth out of six competitors in Heat 6 in 1:58.52. The fastest two from each of the six heats progressed directly to the semi-finals while the third to seventh-fastest moved on to the quarter-finals.

Chen is the Republic’s first Olympic kayaker since Geraldine Lee (K1 500m) competed at London 2012, where she finished seventh out of eight athletes in the second of three K1 500m semi-finals. Lee was the first Singaporean to compete in the sport at the Olympics.

Chen, who won an Asian Games silver medal in 2023, had earned her Paris 2024 berth at the Asian canoe sprint Olympic qualifiers in April.

In doing so, she made up for the disappointment of missing Tokyo 2020 by 0.938sec in the K1 500m and then an even more agonising 0.067sec in the K1 200m.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.