RIO 2016: Schooling makes history with 100m butterfly record

RIO DE JANEIRO – Singapore’s Joseph Schooling powered his way into the Rio Olympics’ men’s 100m butterfly final on Friday (Aug 12) morning when he finished first at 50.83sec in his semi-final in a new national and Asian record time that is also the world's fastest this year.

Swimming in Lane 4 of the second semi-final, the 21-year-old, who had entered the last-16 shootout as the fastest qualifier after his 51.41sec effort in the heats early Friday morning (Aug 12), brushed off South Africa’s 2012 Olympic silver medallist Chad le Clos (51.43sec) to enter the final.

He has also created history by becoming the first Singapore male swimmer to reach an Olympic 'A' final.

Previously, Singapore's best achievement in men's swimming at the Olympics was in 1984 when Ang Peng Siong won the 100m freestyle B consolation final (for the 9th to 16th best swimmers) in Los Angeles.

In the other 100m fly semi-final, Singapore’s Quah Zheng Wen clocked 52:26sec as he finished 8th in his race.

The 19-year-old had clocked a new personal best of 52.08sec in the heats, but was not expected to go through to the final as he had entered the semi-finals as the 16th fastest qualifier.

But that did not stop him from giving it his best shot – and he will look back on this event with some pride after the bitter disappointment of missing out on the 200m butterfly final earlier this week by just 0.08sec.

Zheng Wen was swimming in Lane 8 alongside Michael Phelps and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh.

American great Phelps - who had won the 200m individual medley for his 22nd career Olympic gold moments earlier - clocked 51.58sec to finish second in the race while Cseh was first in 51.57sec. Phelps and Cseh qualified for the final as the fifth and fourth fastest swimmers respectively.

The 100m fly final will be held on Saturday morning (Aug 13, Singapore time) at 9.10am.