Silver lining for Schooling

Silver lining for Schooling

The same chest thump, the same wave to his team-mates, yelling themselves hoarse in the stands. The same smile but, alas, a different outcome.

In an ideal world, Joseph Schooling would have rounded off his individual events at the Incheon Asian Games yesterday with a second gold medal, in the 50m butterfly.

With the quickest reaction time - 0.57 second - off the blocks, he seemed on course for a second straight victory.

Butunlike on Wednesday when he grew stronger as the race progressed to win the 100m butterfly, the 19-year-old could not summon enough strength to strike gold again.

At the Munhak Park Tae Hwan Aquatics Centre, Schooling clocked23.70sec - 0.27sec off his personal best and Asia's fastest time this year - to settle for second place, behind China's Shi Yang, who touched home in an Asiad record of 23.46sec.

Said Schooling: "I would have liked to have two golds and one bronze, but credit to (Shi), he swam a really good race.

"It's my first Asian Games and winning a full set of medals isn't too bad. There's a lot of positives I can take out of it."

Last night's result meant Schooling has a laudable three-medal haul (one gold, one silver and one bronze) from his Asiad debut, having won bronze in the 200m fly on Sunday.

But ending on a losing note has never sat well with the swimmer, not when he was a kid and certainly not now that he is an Asian champion. Said the University of Texas at Austin freshman: "I hate losing. If I lose I get really p****d, and I just want to destroy the person the next time I play with them.

"It just makes me want to go back (to) work a lot harder."

While the results could have been better, swimming at the continental meet has at least shown Schooling what needs to be worked on when he returns to Texas to train under Eddie Reese, head coach of the United States men's swimming team at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

Said Schooling: "All my 200m races (butterfly and individual medley) were stacked, and I was kind of hurting after day two so (maybe it played a part)."

Having swum on every day of the meet bar Tuesday, he will need to build on his strength and endurance to withstand the rigours of big international meets.

As the second-youngest swimmer in every race he medalled in, he has time on his side.

Said Sergio Lopez, Schooling's coach in high school: "He's still young, still growing, and there are many things he can work on, such as strength and explosiveness.

"This Asian Games is a very good experience for him.

"He just needs to stay focused and keep training hard.

"The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships (next March) will be another good outing for him."

Schooling's final event is the 4x100m medley relay today but he is already looking beyond the Asiad.

He said: "My coach (Reese) is giving me a week off to relax. After that, I'm going to be training for the NCAA meet at the end of March.

"After that, the SEA Games in June, and after that probably the World Championships in Kazan (in Russia) where, hopefully, I can get on the podium.

"It's going to be a really busy summer for me but it gives me an opportunity to do great, build events over the summer, and if I do that, I'll be in a very good position going into Rio 2016 (Olympics)."

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This article was first published on Sep 26, 2014.
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