SINGAPORE — He may have made his name as a butterfly specialist, but Joseph Schooling is no slouch in the freestyle either.

The 21-year-old broke yet another swimming record on Friday morning (Feb 24) when he won the 50-yard (45m) freestyle final in 18.76s at the Big 12 Swimming and Diving Championships.

Singapore’s first and only Olympic champion, Schooling cracked Jimmy Feigen’s conference record of 18.84s from 2009 en route to taking gold at the Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center. Feigen was part of the Olympic gold-winning US 4x100m freestyle relay team last year.

Schooling’s time was also a new meet record, beating Ian Crocker’s 19.18s mark from 2004. Pleased with his performance and times, the University of Texas student said he is looking forward to doing well in the coming butterfly and relay events.

“I feel good and I am at where I want to be,” he said. “The past few months have been about working on the small details and getting them right. It is working well and I just need to remain focussed and do well in the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) meet next month.”

While not the biggest of swimmers, Schooling is a top “racer” and has the potential to excel beyond the butterfly, according to US national team high performance director Keenan Robinson.

The 36-year-old, who is in town for three days at the invitation of Singapore Swimming Association to impart his knowledge, believes Schooling can add medals in other disciplines to the 100m fly gold he won at the Rio Olympics. This could come as soon as the world championships in August and in 2020 at the next Olympics.

“He beat all the Americans again and it’s not even his best event, it’s freestyle, which usually favours the giants of the sport,” he said at a media roundtable on Friday evening. 

“He just knocked off his whole collegiate team … so he’s well on his way to a path that would indicate potential opportunities to win a medal in the freestyle event. 

“At the NCAA system, he’s very competitive … in a (world-class field) level and he was trained to be successful in all four strokes. Joseph is a racer, meaning that when it counts, he brings the heat.”

Schooling holds the Singapore national records for all the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle and butterfly events, as well as the 200m individual medley mark. 

He reached the semi-finals of the 100m freestyle in Rio and has indicated interest in competing in the 200m individual medley in future.

Robinson, who took up his current role last September but has worked with the US team since 2004, in particular with swimming great Michael Phelps, noted that both swimmers are “very competitive”. “Losing is not in their vocabulary,” he said. “He (Schooling) is talented and technically good … based on what he has done at meets, I have reason to believe he does what it takes in training.”

And he urged Schooling to not rest on his laurels in his pursuit of more success and greatness, and not be side-tracked by the distractions that have come with an increased profile.

“Never forget the things that got him to the podium in Rio, like preparatory work, work away from the pool, listening to coaches, paying attention to the details and those little extra activities that made him better,” he said. “Second, just trust the system and process. He’s under some of the very best guidance in the US with (Texas head coach) Eddie Reese, who has had an Olympian at every Olympic Games since 1984, so his programme and system will get Joseph there.”