Schooling Settles For Bronze On Night 3 Of Singapore Nationals

14th SINGAPORE NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2018

Although Olympic champion Joseph Schooling topped the podium in front of a roaring crowd on night 2 of the 2018 Singapore National Swimming Championships, the 23-year-0ld wasn’t able to replicate the same feat tonight at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.

Training in Singapore for the summer, Schooling picked up an individual win last night in the 100m fly, clocking a modest, in-training time of 52.43. He kicked off this morning’s prelim with a solid time of 50.35 in the men’s 100m freestyle to claim the top seed heading into tonight’s final. Schooling added .14 to his morning effort to clock 50.49, however, to fall to 3rd in the final race. Earning 100m free gold was India’s Virahawal Khade, who touched in 50.26, followed by New South Wales’ William Yang in 50.37.

As reported yesterday, Schooling is more than likely dropping the 200m fly event from his ongoing meet repertoire indefinitely, so the former Texas Longhorn was not among the field tonight. In his absence, and without Quah Wen Zheng’s presence at these championships, Victoria’s Bowen Gough topped the 200m fly field in a winning effort of 1:59.72. That slid just .04 ahead of Singapore’s Jung Yiong who took silver in 1:59.76.

Gough’s teammate, Samuel Williamson, proved too fast in the 200m breast for any Singaporean to catch, as he won the race in a time of 2:14.84, a new meet record. Fellow Swimming Victoria athlete Sophie Caldwell also won tonight, taking her 3rd event title of these championships. After a 1500m victory and 200m back win on the first 2 nights, Caldwell won the women’s 200m IM in a time of 2:17.69, also a new meet record.

Singapore’s Pang Sheng Jun successfully defended his 200m IM title, winning the race in 2:03.31. The Aquatech Swimming Club athlete fell just .04 shy of his own meet record mark of 2:03.35 set at this competition last year.

17-year-old Cherlyn Yeoh was tonight’s women’s 100m freestyle winner, charging to the wall in a gold medal-garnering effort of 56.61.

Additional Winners:

  • Indonesia’s Nurul Fajar Fitriyati won tonight’s women’s 100m back race in 1:03.48.
  • 18-year-old Adinda Larasati Dewi, also from Indonesia, was victorious in the women’s 200m fly, winning in 2:14.60.
  • The women’s 200m breaststroke saw Hwaseong City’s Kim Seulbee take the gold in 2:31.45, a new meet record.
  • New South Wales’ Yang took his 2nd medal of the evening after his 100m free silver, earning gold in the men’s 100m back in 55.58.
  • The top 3 men’s 1500m freestyle finishers all dipped under the previous meet record of 16:02.86 on the books since 2015. Led by Advait Page‘s winning mark of 15:25.98, Indonesia’s Aflah Prawira and 15-year-old Glen Lim of Singapore each also were sub-16:00 in respective times of 15:35.98 and 15:56.75.

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Sherayne ang Wan Ling
5 years ago

Joseph has a pretty decent chance of winning the 50 and 100m freestyle titles at asiad this time around!

Nesel ang
5 years ago

Hopefully he will regain back his rio 2016 form at asiad

Gabriel Goh
5 years ago

Hopefully joe will be in blistering form at the Asian games next month

ice
5 years ago

I wouldnt deny Joseph’s times are not a bit concerning, but it seems that the top Singaporean swimmers are pretty much all untapered and unshaven, given how most have already secured Asian Games qualification and thus are peaking for that instead

sven
5 years ago

I am optimistic about Schooling this summer. There’s no reason for him to be rested now, I’d be more concerned if he was crushing it. I think he’ll be sub-51 and 48 low this summer in the fly and free, which would be great, and set him up well going into the back half of this quad.

Taa
Reply to  sven
5 years ago

What if this is actually his version of crushing it? It was his first meet back since March so his times were good but I don’t believe he is going to put in the work needed over the summer. His base of training from the run up to Rio will no longer help him. So he is moving into total sprinter mode which has its own training challenges and he is not at Texas anymore. He will be a big question mark until Asian games and then all the haters will have a field day if he doesn’t win the 100

Snarky.
5 years ago

Geez. Give the guy a break folks. 2018 just doesn’t matter. I’m sure he will be ready in 2020.

Go Blue
Reply to  Snarky.
5 years ago

quitting swims always matters

Brutus
5 years ago

He should train with the SERG at VaTECH and then he will be able to finish a 200 fly…maybe

How much does CD bench
5 years ago

Doesn’t matter what he goes at this meet. He’s just waiting for US Nats so he can pop off a (whatever Dressel did)-0.50 in practice that next Monday.

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Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having just earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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