Singapore's Olympic champion Joseph Schooling revealed he was happy with his performance at the recently-concluded Big 12 Swimming and Diving Championships, which involves 10 schools from five states in the US, and that he is now ready to compete at National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships next month.
Schooling started his Big 12 campaign on Thursday by breaking a eight-year old US meet record with a gold medal-finish in the 50m freestyle category at Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center, University of Texas. The Singapore swimmer, who is doing his university studies in Texas, clocked 18.76s eclipsing the previous record-mark at the Big 12 set by two-time Olympic champion Jimmy Feigen at the 2009 NCCA Championships.
The Olympic 100m butterfly champion also set a new meet record in the 100m butterfly event on Friday before smashing another record in the 400m freestlyle relay with teammates Jack Conger, Brett Ringgold and Townley Haas on Saturday (Sunday, Singapore time), according to The Straits Times. Notably, Schooling now has seven school records against his name.
With next month's NCAA championships possibly serving as warm-up for the upcoming Fina World Championships (Budapest) in July and the SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur, Schooling is gearing up to work with his coach Eddie Reese and bag more medals in the coming weeks.
"I think I had a good meet overall. There were a couple of things that I tried in this meet in preparation for the NCAA swimming championships," Schooling said, as quoted by the news daily.
"From here, I will sit down with Eddie to discuss on how to approach the NCAAs. I do feel that it is working out really well for me, from the times I've clocked in this meet. So I am looking forward to see what I can achieve next month."
