Tao Li qualifies for 50m butterfly semi-final

BARCELONA - National swimmer Tao Li progressed to her second semi-final at the FINA World Swimming Championship in Barcelona when she finished third in her women’s 50m butterfly heat this afternoon (Aug 2). The 23-year-old touched home in 26.48sec in her final event. The time ranked her 13th out of 59 swimmers and was good enough to book her a place in tonight’s semi-finals (11.55pm,Singapore time). Britain’s Halsall Francesca was the fastest qualifier with a time of 25.69 seconds. Tao had earlier reached the semi-finals for the women’s 100m butterfly on the first day of the Championships last Sunday. Although she did not make it to the final in the end, her time of 59.02sec ranked her 14th out of 16 swimmers in the semis, and made her the second-ranked Asian in the event behind China’s Lu Ying. Meanwhile, Joseph Schooling was not able to set a third national record when he clocked 52.65sec in his 100m butterfly heat which was his last event of the world meet. He narrowly missed out on the semi-finals, finishing 17th best in the field. Only the top 16 progress to the semi-finals. The 17-year-old US-based swimmer had set two new national records earlier in the week in the 200m butterfly and 200m Individual Medley. He also advanced to the semi-finals of both events.