Schooling in Rio 2016
Who’s your hero? In 2008, 13 year old Joseph Schooling got to meet his hero, Michael Phelps, when the Olympian visited Singapore prior to the Beijing Olympics. Today, 8 years later, Joseph just made history by beating Michael to Gold in the 100m Butterfly finals - the first Singaporean to ever make (let alone win) an Olympic swimming final. After meeting his hero as a young teenager, Joseph said “Michael Phelps may be my idol, but I just want to make my own career.” He then became fully committed to his swimming and, 3 years later in 2011 Joseph beat Michael’s age-group (15-16 years) time over the 100 yards butterfly. At the time, Joseph said, "It's been a target of mine and I'm really happy to do that. It is a huge boost… Hopefully, I can get more of his records." In 2012, at 17, he finally got his dream of swimming in the same race as Michael, saying it was "a tick off on my bucket list.” That was the year Joseph first qualified for the Olympics in London, but ...