TOKYO – Joseph Schooling got his Tokyo Olympics campaign off to an underwhelming start when he clocked 49.84 seconds in the men’s 100m freestyle heats on Tuesday (July 27) evening.
Singapore’s only Olympic champion, who won the 100m butterfly gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, finished sixth in Heat 5, which was won by Croatia’s Nikola Miljenic in 49.25sec.
The 26-year-old’s time was not good enough for him to advance to Wednesday’s semi-final as one of the top 16 swimmers. He finished 39th out of the 70-strong field. Italy’s Thomas Ceccon led the qualifiers with a time of 47.71sec.
Five years ago in Rio, Schooling clocked 48.27sec – still the national record – to progress to the semi-finals as the sixth-quickest swimmer in the heats, but failed to make it into the final.
Schooling will now turn his attention to his 100m fly title defence on Thursday evening, where he will race in the heats with teammate Quah Zheng Wen.
The other Singaporean swimmer in Tokyo, Quah’s sister Ting Wen, will race in the 100m and 50m free heats on Wednesday and Friday respectively.