2019 FINA WORLD CUP #3 – SINGAPORE
- Thursday, August 15th – Saturday, August 17th
- OCBC Aquatic Centre, Singapore
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Day 1 of the FINA World Cup stop in Singapore heated up with powerful swims by Russia’s Vlad Morozov in the men’s 50m free, Andrew Wilson in the men’s 100m breast and Cate Campbell in the women’s 50m free, to name just a few eye-catching performances.
Host nation swimmer Joseph Schooling is hoping to continue the trend on day 2, where the 24-year-old former Texas Longhorn will be taking on his one and only event of this World Cup in the men’s 200m IM.
Situated in lane 1 of the first of four heats of the men’s 200 IM, Schooling is hoping to make the top 8 in this event against the likes of Aussies Mitch Larkin and Thomas Fraser-Holmes and China’s Wang Yizhe. In fact, Schooling’s participation in this event, as opposed to his bread-and-butter 100m fly, is indicative of where the Singaporean Olympic champion wants to take his swim training directionally in the final year before the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Speaking to The Straits Times this week, Schooling said, “I think the most important thing is (that) I need to get my volume up in practice, I need to start doing longer and more sustained, intense sets.”
He continued, “The IM trains a lot of different things, like fitness and different strokes, and it taps on different muscle systems and energy systems.
“Eddie (Reese, his former coach at the University of Texas, Austin) told me (in 2016) that I need to stay in a middle distance to do well, but middle distance hurts a lot more than a sprint. And so I just wasn’t ready for it until this year to keep pushing that middle distance like I had been. That’s what won me the gold in Rio, and that’s why I need to go back to it.”
Schooling owns Singapore’s National Record in the 200m IM with his time of 1:59.99 logged way back in 2013. Schooling most recently found himself out of the 100m fly semi-finals in Gwangju, ending his World Championships campaign early with a 24th place time of 52.93.
But, Schooling and his coach Gary Tan are hoping to change the tide, devoting about 80% of Schoolnig’s training now for middle-distance events, up from about 40% ahead of this year’s Worlds.
Tan told The Straits Times, “We felt there was a need to change it a bit and do a bit more conditioning on the legs, so that’s where the middle-distance stuff comes in – we can focus on mileage and the intensity of his kicking sets, but we want to build on it progressively and get him into the best shape possible.
“If you condition your legs and your lungs, there’s a lot of good that will come out of it.”
The men’s 200m IM heats are scheduled to begin at 10:23 am local time on Friday, August 16th at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.
Can we stop lathering hate on Schooling? It’s not as if he’s taken PEDs or committed any crimes. The guy’s an Olympic gold medalist and no matter how slow he swims now, he’ll always be one. You don’t have to put him down to raise others up. He’s still a national hero in Singapore and will forever be so.
If u want to evaluate him based off a swim from 3 years ago that’s up to you. He has a major meet come to his home and the only event he does is a 200im. You don’t find that odd? It’s like cate Campbell doing the breaststroke. At least he had a good prelim swim.
Schooling is an Olympic champion. He is the 2016 Olympic champion in 2019, and will be the 2016 Olympic champion in every single year after. The guy’s achieved some fantastic things in the sport, and hasn’t committed some of the same mistakes certain other individuals have. I’d say an individual Olympic gold medal is a fair enough evaluation – don’t you.
It took a while for the few remaining Schooling fanboys to be alerted to this thread. But welcome aboard. BTW, pointing out that he didn’t make it out of the heats at Worlds, or any of his other post-Olympic disasters, is just pointing out facts, not “lathering hate.” You have your favorite fact — his Olympic gold — everyone else is entitled to recite other less flattering facts.
He wins gold in 2016 then in 2017 places 37th in the 2 fly at NCAAs then in 2018 places 26th.
Bro, this is the guy who came out of swimming and won. So many of the athletes at the division 1 level get sucked into it and spat out, wondering what else they could have done with their career. Schooling not only managed to get college paid for, but he’s getting paid in Singapore, so why would he care about going fast? At the end of the day, he’s going to end up with swimming having had a tremendous financial advantage in his life, something that isn’t true for a large portion of D1 swimmers.
MA just did a personal best 100 free his third event of the day
Has anyone ever been so slow over 100 with a 21.4 50 pb?
Proud was. He had nice relay splits at Worlds.
He just did 2.03.38 in heats . Top seed
2.00 in the final
Top seed out of prelims boiiii
Why is this guy still relevant?
Because is is a national hero for Singapore. He has tremendous support in his country and I hope that he gets back on the podium at the Olympics
He is still the reigning Olympic champion in the 100m butterfly.. I know he has said things that make people dont like him, but he doesnt deserve so much hate
Pointing out that he’s sucked ever since Olympics is not “hate.” He’s a pro, for f’s sake, not an age grouper who has to be coddled by ignoring his poor performances.
Props i suppose for admitting he’s too much of a weenie to try in practice
What a head case.