Southeast Asia Games star Joseph Schooling has been off to a hot start at the 2015 FINA World Championships, breaking his own national record in the 50 fly twice within the first day of competition, and also taking down the Asian record.
Coming off a dominant Southeast Asia Games in which he went a perfect 9-for-9 in gold medals and meet records, Schooling is showing up even faster in Kazan. In prelims of the 50 fly, he went 23.40, getting just under the 23.43 national record he set at last summer’s Commonwealth Games.
But Schooling saved his best stuff of the day for semifinals, where he blasted a 23.27 to break the record once more, and also knock down the Asian record of 23.37 held by China’s Yu Hexin.
He needed every ounce of that speed in the semis, too, as he snuck into the final by just .03 seconds (leaving, ironically, his former Bolles School Shark teammate Santo Condorelli just on the outside of the championship heat).
The 50 is arguably Schooling’s weakest of the three butterfly distances, so a drop of two tenths off his lifetime-best and a finals appearance has to be a good sign for the Singaporean team moving forward. Schooling will also swim the 100 and 200 flys later this week, events in which he already holds Singaporean national records.
Schooling was the NCAA champion in both of those events in the short course yards pool used by American college swimming.
Amazing swim by jospeh, as usual he deliver. He would’ve been a huge asset to the 4×100 free relay.
Speaking of which, I wonder what happened to spore mens 4×100 free relay team? Singapore head coach, Sergio Lopez had expressed high hopes on this team qualifying for Rio countless times in the media. Not only did the team fail to qualify, it placed a miserable 28th. Curious to know, why didn’t Joseph swim?
As far as I know he opted out of the relay to focus on his individual events. He really wants to win a medal here (whether 50/100/200 fly) so I guess you can’t deny him that opportunity.
The relay team thus had to field breaststroker Lionel Khoo in place of Joseph (53 second split compared to a probable 48 second split from Joseph) and therefore didn’t really clock a good time.
I respect Joseph’s decision, definitely wasn’t an easy one for him. However, knowing beforehand that getting a medal at World Champs was Joseph’s priority, shouldn’t Singapore Swimming have come up with a contingency plan and send an individual whose time is closer to Joseph to swim the relay rather than fielding someone who isn’t much of a freestyle specialist?
It would’ve been good to see Singapore qualify a relay time for Rio 2016, would’ve been a first for us too.
Don’t Schooling and Condarelli live and train in the United States? If they can both swim a fast 50 fly, where are the others of their ilk who actually compete for the US. Entering just 1 50 flyer was unacceptable to me. The US should also be able to have kids that can swim 50’s as well as 100’s and 200’s.
I know conger has a good 50 fly.. Would have also been huge for the 4×100 free relay
Too bad he spent the last year ruining his career by competing in 25-yard course at Texas.
I love jokes on this website. Very funny. I laughed.
It’s really too bad there there isn’t a sarcasm font. More people might appreciate my posts if they could perceive my tone of voice.
Bolles!!
This is also a new Asian record breaking the 23.37 by China’s Yu Hexin from April this year.
Every male and female long course Asian record had been held by a swimmer from either Japan or China. We now have tiny Singapore on the list.