Schooling wins first individual NCAA title

SINGAPORE – National swimmer Joseph Schooling won his first individual swimming title at the prestigious NCAA Division 1 men’s swimming championships this morning (March 28), after clocking 44.51secs in the men’s 100-yard (91.44m) butterfly to erase five-time Olympic medallist Ian Crocker’s (44.72) school mark set in the event 11 years ago.

By doing so, the Singaporean swimmer also became the first freshman from his college at the University of Texas at Austin to win an individual NCAA title, since Austin Surhoff clinched the 200m individual medley event four years ago.

Schooling's time is also the second-fastest time ever swam in the 100-yard butterfly, only behind Austin Staab's 44.18secs clocked in 2009.

At Iowa City this morning, Schooling beat five of his teammates from the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) to win the men’s 100-yard finals.

Schooling, 19, was trailing schoolmate and sophomore Jack Conger in the first 50-yard, but closed the gap in the last-50 to pip him to the wall first.

Conger – who beat Olympic superstar Michael Phelps’ time of 1min 39.65secs in the 200-yard butterfly to set a new American record of 1:39.31 last year in the Big 12 Championships - took the silver medal in 44.55secs, while fellow UT swimmer Tripp Cooper was third in 45.06secs.

Schooling’s 100-yard butterfly time of 44.51secs converted to long-course metres (LCM) is 50.69secs, and would have ranked him fifth in the event’s world record progression.

Schooling’s time (in LCM conversion) is also less than one-second off Phelp’s world record time of 49.82secs set in 2009, and is faster than the 51.69secs that won him the silver medal at last year’s Commonwealth Games.

Schooling would be in action again in the 200-yard butterfly preliminaries at the NCAA Championships at 12am (Singapore time), and is expected to put up a close swim again with Conger who holds the American record and US Open record for the event with his 1:39.31 effort. Schooling is seeded second behind Conger in the event at 1:40.59.

Schooling, who will be in town to compete at the South-east Asian (SEA) Games come June, had already won another gold medal at the NCAAs in the men’s 400-yard medley relay finals on Friday in a new NCAA record time of 3:01.23, erasing the previous mark of 3:01.39. Schooling swam in the butterfly leg of the event.