One more SEA Games? ‘We’ll see’, says Joseph Schooling after wrapping up with 2 golds, 1 bronze in Hanoi

Two days before, Schooling, Quah, Tan and Mikkel Lee had touched home first in the 4x100m freestyle relay but were – along with Malaysia – later disqualified, leaving Vietnam to take gold, Indonesia the silver and Thailand the bronze.

Singapore’s swimming national head coach Gary Tan would later refute reports that it was Schooling who had taken off early, resulting in the disqualification.

“Gary is the buffer towards that (noise),” said Schooling. “Honestly, I didn’t see any noise for that one … Drowning out the noise comes with the territory and the more you do it the easier it gets.” 

Schooling however held his hand up for his role in the 4x200m freestyle relay on Tuesday. Singapore finished third, behind Malaysia and Vietnam, who set a new Games record of 7:16.31.

“It was definitely my leg that let my team down for sure. Very disappointed with that,” said Schooling who was the third leg swimmer. “But at the end of the day, it’s a team effort and to get on the podium is still something. Just got to go back and work harder, let this motivate us.”

National head coach Gary Tan praised Schooling for his effort at the Games.

“I think Joe needs to be very pleased with himself. He swam a good 100 fly. This 200 free was tough for him, with (national service) commitment(s) again like he’s had, both of them (Quah and Schooling) … You could tell the back-end was tough for them,” said Tan.

“I think Joe has put in 110 per cent effort on this and you cannot question an effort like that.”