There was a time when people said that Singapore won’t make it, but we did. And it’s because of Joseph Schooling that our Little Red Dot is thrown into the spotlight with our first Olympic gold medal.
This is like, the best National Day gift ever.
The 21-year-old Singaporean just won the 100m men’s butterfly finals this morning at Rio de Janeiro, clocking in a time of 50.39s and breaking the Olympic Games record of 50.58s, which was previously held by American legend Michael Phelps from Beijing 2008.
We’ve got goosebumps everywhere knowing that homeboy beat his swimming idol Phelps, who came in joint second at 51.14s with South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh.
This marks the first gold medal by a Southeast Asian swimmer. And it’s the first time at the Rio Olympics 2016 that Phelps has been beaten — to give you some perspective, the guy has won the 100m butterfly at the previous three Olympics.
So many record-smashing achievements on the shoulders of Schooling, who acknowledged how grateful he was to represent Singapore and said this win was a dream come true.
Indeed. We’re so freakin’ proud.
Reader Interactions