Schooling Takes 100 Fly In Singapore, But Has More To Give

50TH SINGAPORE NATIONAL AGE GROUP SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS (SNAGS)

• Tuesday, March 19th – Sunday, March 24th (Senior Swimmers)
• OCBC Aquatic Centre
• LCM
• Qualifying Meet for 2019 World Championships, 2019 World Junior Championships, 2019 SEA Games, 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games
• Meet Site
• SwimSwam Meet Preview
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
• Entry Lists/Results

Singapore’s Olympic champion Joseph Schooling was in the OCBC Aquatic Centre pool tonight, taking center stage in the men’s 100m butterfly final at the National Age Group Swimming Championships. Clocking a time of 52.70, Schooling took the gold in the only time under the 53-second threshold, with Teong Tzen Wei taking silver in 53.60. 17-year-old Jonathan Tan rounded out the top 3 overall finishers in a time of 54.31.

For Schooling, the 24-year-old Chinese Swimming Club athlete’s time tonight falls shy of the FINA A cut of 51.96 needed for this summer’s World Championships. But Schooling didn’t need it, as he had already qualified for the World Championships via gold medal-winning time of 51.04 at last year’s Asian Games.

Singapore’s National Head Coach and Performance Director Stephan Widmer said of Schooling’s race tonight, “Joseph had a go at it today, and he did many great things today and approached the race really well. He had a goal that he wanted to see today, which was not really the timing that was clocked. They are competitive athletes so you can see on their faces when things do not go their way. We wanted to see where we are right now and from there we can make judgement calls for the future.”

“In many areas he is in a good position, his strength, his body alignment and so from here on we have to keep on building the physiology side of swimming, the aerobic skills to speed and power development.”

Newly-minted 100m freestyle National Record holder Quah Ting Wen did more damage at these championships, winning the women’s 100m fly in a time of 59.28. That qualifies the 27-year-old for this year’s South East Asia Games.

Another highlight of the evening included Indonesian swimmer Alfah Fadlan Prawira taking the men’s 400m IM event to collect his 2nd gold of the meet. The National Record holder earned a winning time of 4:24.26, not a far cry from his national standard of 4:22.73 from 2017.