SINGAPORE - Quah Zheng Wen won his first individual National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) medal on Saturday (Sunday morning, Singapore time).
He posted 1min 38.83sec to finish 2nd in the 200-yard butterfly final at the NCAA Division I Men's Swimming and Diving Championships in Indiana .
Jack Conger of the University of Texas (UT) won the race in 1:37.35, while the University of Georgia's Gunnar Bentz was third (1:40.07).
Quah, 20, had earlier won his heat in 1:40.44min and was the second-fastest qualifier going into the final, behind Conger (1:39.88).
Quah's fellow Singaporean Joseph Schooling, the two-time defending champion, was ill with fever and crashed out in the heats after clocking 1:45.47 to place 37th overall.
The 21-year-old UT junior holds the 200-yd butterfly NCAA record of 1:37.97.
Quah, a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley, is making his NCAA debut at the March 22-25 Championships.
He swam his first individual NCAA final on Friday (Saturday morning, Singapore time), clocking 45.06sec to place fifth in the 100-yd butterfly race.