Schooling in good form at US Collegiate meet

AUSTIN — With less than 100 days to the South-east Asian (SEA) Games, Singapore national swimmer Joseph Schooling is shaping up well.

On Wednesday, the 19-year-old, together with University of Texas (UT) team-mates Kip Darmody, John Murray and Brett Ringgold, won the men’s 200 yard medley relay on the first day of the Big 12 Championships in Austin in 1min 24.46secs.

They finished ahead of second-placed Texas Christian University (1:27.52).

According to Swimming World Magazine’s website, Schooling went out in 8.99secs in the butterfly leg before finishing with an impressive 19.66secs.

The Big 12 Championships uses the short course format in yards. Unofficially, when converted to long course metres, Schooling’s result is close to his national 50 metre (long course) butterfly record of 23.43 set at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

UT also won the 800-yard freestyle relay in 6:15.98 through Jonathan Roberts (1:34.54), Jack Conger (1:33.59), Clay Youngquist (1:33.65) and Schooling (1:34.20).

The results helped UT Austin top the men’s rankings after the first day of the Big 12 Championships with 117 points, ahead of TCU (115) and West Virginia (43).

Schooling, a gold medallist at last year’s Asian Games and currently a freshman at UT Austin, will be one of the biggest names to watch at the June 5 to 16 SEA Games in Singapore.