Phelps, who cut short his participation in the IM medal ceremony to race off the pool deck and get ready for the butterfly semi-finals, touched in 51.58 seconds. The sub 51s timing is the fastest anyone has done for this sport at this Olympic Games.
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He may not have rewritten his national record, but Singapore swim star Joseph Schooling made a huge statement of intent by topping the Rio Olympics men’s 100m butterfly heats on Friday morning (Singapore time).
The Texas-based swimmer, a 100m butterfly bronze medalist at last year’s world championships, set a time of 51.41 seconds with boyhood idol Phelps second in the heat with a 51.60 that left him fourth overall.
The 100m butterfly final will be held on Saturday morning (Aug 13, Singapore time) at 9.10am.
The way he’s been swimming at this meet, Schooling has brought himself into the gold medal conversation, especially given that medal favorites Chad Le Clos and Laszlo Cseh haven’t been swimming as fast as expected up to this point.
Singapore had two swimmers in the semis with Quah Zheng Wen qualifying 16th with a personal best of 52.08. The first is a picture taken by Schooling’s mother of the duo in 2008 before the Beijing Olympic Games.
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The 21-year-old lined up in Lane 5 in the last of the six heats, with American legend Michael Phelps just beside him in Lane 4. Phelps came in second, clocking 51.60s.
