Singapore Sports School, Wednesday, June 22, 2011 — Butterfly specialist Joseph Schooling set a new men’s national 100 metres Butterfly record when he clocked a time of 54.19 seconds at the evening finals on the second day of the 7th Singapore National Swimming Championships.

The 16-year-old broke Bryan Tay’s mark of 54.46s set at the Asian Age Group meet in August 2009. Schooling came within 0.12 seconds of that mark when he swam a 54.58s in the morning heats. That was a new personal best and national under-17 record, bettering his own mark of 55.39s.

In the final, Schooling came out fast and turned at the 50m mark in 25.45 seconds, which in itself would have bettered the pre-championships national under-17 50m Butterfly mark. However, Indonesia’s Glenn Victor Sutanto pipped Schooling at the end by just 0.01 seconds.

The two are likely to face off once again at November’s South-east Asian (SEA) Games in Palembang, where Vietnam’s Quy Phuoc Hoang is set to be a title contender after clocking 53.56s at last month’s Malaysia Open. This is faster than 2009 SEA Games champion Daniel Bego’s gold-medal winning time of 53.82s, which was swum in an era where performance-enhancing non-textile suits were allowed.

According to a report in The Star, a Malaysia newspaper, Bego is nursing a shoulder injury and is doubtful for the Games.

Dzulhaili Bin Mohd Kamal was fourth in 56.02 seconds, a new personal best which makes him the sixth fastest Singaporean in history over this distance.

In other events, Jeremy Kevin Mathews clocked his first sub 1 minute 53 second time for the men’s 200m Freestyle when he swam a 1:52.93. He is the second fastest Singaporean this year, behind Danny Yeo, who won the race in 1:51.72 and had already met the ‘A’ qualifying mark in January.

In the women’s 4 x 200m Freestyle relay, Quah Ting Wen once again fell short of meeting the ‘A’ qualifying mark for the SEA Games and usurping the three swimmers ahead of her in the rankings.

The ‘A’ mark stands at 2:03.90 which Ting Wen missed by 0.01 seconds in the individual 200m Freestyle final on Tuesday. This time, in the relay, she clocked 2:03.99 as the lead-off swimmer for the Swimfast Aquatic Club (SAC) ‘A’ team.

Amanda Lim improved on her season’s best of 2:03.54 with her lead-off leg of 2:03.21 for SAC’s ‘B’ team, propelling herself to the top of the 200m Freestyle rankings this year. Koh Hui Yu and Mylene Ong are second and third respectively with times of 2:03.39 and 2:03.44. Only a maximum of two swimmers per country will be nominated to swim in each event at the SEA Games.