NAYPYITAW – Joseph Schooling and Tao Li shared the spoils at the Wunna Theikdi swimming complex this evening (Dec 14), as the duo won two gold medals each to redeem Singapore's pride at the 2013 Myanmar SEA Games.

A sub-par performance in the pool on Friday saw Team Singapore's 18-strong swimming contingent winning just one gold from Joseph Schooling in the men's 200m individual medley. The women's 4x100m freestyle relay team – who won gold in the event in the last three editions of the Games – were also beaten by the Thais who took four titles from seven events.

For Singapore to maintain their reputation as South-east Asian swimming kingpins, the response had to be swift, and it was.

Swim queen Tao Li kick got things going in the women's 100m backstroke, touching home in 1min 02.47sec ahead of Vietnam's rising teen sensation Nguyen Thi Anh Vien (1:02.76) and Junkrajang Natthanan of Thailand (1:04.03).

The 23-year-old was back in the pool just 18 minutes later, storming past her rivals in the 100m butterfly to claim gold in 59.87sec. Teammate Quah Ting Wen and Jamine Alkhaldi of the Philippines were second and third in 1:00.34 and 1:01.76 respectively.

But a spot of poolside drama saw a delay of some 20 minutes before Tao Li was able to collect her 100m backstroke gold. Officials from the Vietnam team had lodged a protest alleging that Tao Li surfaced past the 15m mark, but it was eventually rejected by the referee. There was a suggestion that the Vietnamese may have lodged the appeal to give Nguyen more time to rest ahead of her next race, the women's 800m freestyle.

Said Tao Li after the medal ceremony: “I don't know what happened as it (disqualification) didn't happen to me even at the world championships and I was confident that I would be okay. These two races were the hardest for me because there was little rest time between them... I'm quite old now and don't recover as fast.”

Singapore swimming's golden boy Joseph Schooling remained well on track for his SEA Games target of six gold and six Games records as the 18-year-old blasted past the field in the men's 100m butterfly to claim gold in a new meet record time of 52.67sec. Indonesia's Sidiq Triady Fauzi (57.09) and Glenn Victor Sutanto (53.93) had to settle for the silver and bronze respectively.

Schooling, who is heading to University of Texas, saved the best for last as he anchored the men's 4x100m freestyle team of Clement Lim, Danny Yeo, and Darren Lim to gold in the final race of the evening.

The victory was also a special moment for the quartet, who clocked a new Games and national record time of 3min 21.74sec enroute to top spot ahead of Malaysia (3:26.98) and Thailand (3:27.17). The previous national record time of 3:23.22 was set by Russell Ong, Joshua Lim, Danny Yeo and Zach Ong at the Laos SEA Games four years ago.

Singapore Swimming Association national coach and technical director Ian Turner was delighted with today's performance, as he said: “That's swimming isn't it, there are highs and lows and we can't dictate what events we have on which day. We realise there are some areas of weakness in the team, we have to take our disapppointments and celebrate our succeses.

“Schooling is obviously an up and coming talent and he is an exceptional swimmer. Tao Li and Joseph lifted themselves at this meet, and they have done extremely well.”

Team Singapore's swimmers finished the third day of competition in Naypyitaw with four gold and two silver medals in the men's 100m backstroke (Quah Zheng Wen) and women's 100m butterfly (Ting Wen).