Schooling flies into 100m butterfly final

SINGAPORE — National swimmer Joseph Schooling could deliver an early birthday gift for Singapore tomorrow (Aug 8) if he wins a medal in the men’s 100m butterfly final at the FINA World Championships in Russia.

The 20-year-old, who was crowned Sportsman of the Year at the Singapore Sports Awards on Wednesday, earned his ticket to the top eight against a semi-final field comprising Hungary’s 200m butterfly champion Laszlo Cseh and American Tom Shields tonight. 

Schooling clocked a new national record time of 51.40s to finish seventh fastest among the qualifiers and advance to tomorrow’s final at 11.13pm (Singapore time). Shields and Cseh were the joint-quickest swimmers in the semis in 51.03s, with South Africa’s Chad le Clos the third fastest qualifier in 51.11s.

“Not qualifying for the 200m butterfly finals was disappointing, but I had to put that aside to concentrate on the 100m,” said Schooling after his race. “In fact, it gave me the extra motivation to push myself. I swam well in the heats and semi-final and started strong right from the beginning. I’m stoked for the final tomorrow and I am looking forward to put on a strong performance.”

Back in the pool after two days of rest, Schooling — the reigning Asian Games gold medallist in the 100m butterfly — signalled his intent early in the day, topping his heat in a national record time of 51.65s to beat 2012 Olympics silver medallist le Clos to the finish. 

Added national head coach Sergio Lopez: “I’m delighted to see Joseph swim well today. He was disappointed with his 200m fly performance, but today we saw the the fighter who I described a few days ago. 

“To recover from a setback and push on to clock a personal best in the 100m fly shows how determined he is to do well. I am looking forward to the final tomorrow and I am sure everyone back in Singapore will be rooting for him.”

Tomorrow’s final is Schooling’s last chance to win a medal at the world meet, but the Singaporean will need to fend off the challenges from top swimmers like Cseh and le Clos in the hunt for the Republic’s first-ever title at the championships. 

Tomorrow’s final will be a fight to the finish, and former national swimmer Mark Chay believes Schooling has the ability to spring a surprise. 

“It’s a world-class field that Schooling will be going up against, so it won’t be easy for him,” said Chay, 33. “He’s already done Singapore very proud by making the finals, which I believe is something he expected of himself at the very least ... It really is anyone’s guess as to who will win because there’s usually very little difference between the top eight in the world.”

This year’s world championships is regarded as a warm-up and test for many of the world’s top swimmers — including Schooling — ahead of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. 

After seeing Schooling’s performances in the pool — he had posted a new Asian record time in the 50m fly final on Monday — Chay is confident that he can match up to the world’s best in Brazil. 

“He is definitely on track to bringing glory to Singapore,” said Chay. “He’ll be just 21 next year, which is really young and he’s only going to get better and more mature training in Texas. But he’ll need to go back, focus on what he needs to do next year and get both stronger and faster in time for the Olympics.”

Singapore’s Quah Ting Wen and Rachel Tseng also competed in the women’s 50m fly and 800m freestyle today, but both swimmers did not progress past the heats after finishing 37th out of 64 swimmers, and 34th out of 43 respectively.