A Big Fish
As he heads off to the Tokyo Olympics, Singaporean swimmer Joseph Schooling tests the waters for his next big move
Olympic swimmer Joseph Schooling plots his next big move
Depending on how you look at it, Joseph Schooling is either at the tail end of his career or just getting started.
Singapore’s first and only Olympic gold medallist might be on has last lap as a competitive swimmer. The forthcoming Tokyo Olympics will likely be his swan song after almost two decades in the pool, but his future is just on the starting blocks.
“The first thing I think about is glass half-full and glass half-empty,” says the 25-year-old from his training base in Virginia, in the US, funnily enough making an analogy that involves water. “I like the second one better. It’s like a spring, diving off a block into what’s next.”
Regardless of what the reigning 100-metre Olympic butterfly champion and two-time Asian Games winner decides, Schooling already has written himself into the annals of Singapore’s history as one of its most successful athletes. Medals aside, Schooling has amassed more than $1 million in incentives, and outside the pool, his commercial deals with Toyota, Hugo Boss, Tag Heuer, Canon and DBS Bank have reportedly earned him a seven-figure sum. Only former footballing star Fandi Ahmad comes close to matching the swimmer’s star power.
There has been talk that a job in wealth management is already on the table whenever Schooling, an economics major from the University of Austin, is ready to take it. He has also launched his own swim school and a fitness app.
“I would say I’m nervous because athletes are hardwired to want to be able to control the situation, and that’s impossible, because in life you can't really control anything,” Schooling says. “I’m excited to do something different, I'm excited to place 100 per cent of my energy and focus on building something completely unrelated.”
Schooling’s hunger to succeed was evident even at the age of six, when he made a commitment to himself to compete at the Olympics, after hearing stories about his grand-uncle Lloyd Valberg, a high-jumper, who became Singapore’s first ever Olympian at the 1948 Games. He also notes his discipline to follow a schedule and ability to find inner-peace and happiness are traits that will serve him as a businessman as well.
“You can take people out of any field and put them anywhere,” he says. “The crazy thing is if you speak to high-performing people, you’re going to hear them talk about different things, but the mindset is all the same, and that just says it all.”
Had the Tokyo Olympics been held in 2020 as planned, he is the first to admit that he would not have been ready to defend his title. A sub-par performance at the 2019 SEA Games, concerns over his weight, and perhaps a wrong decision to return to Singapore for his Olympic preparation meant he would have headed to Tokyo a shadow of his former self.
But their postponement bought Schooling one more year to train. Since moving back to the US to train under his former coach, Sergio Lopez, he has found his groove.
“I just think I’ve been too comfortable in Singapore,” he says. “I love being home, but I’m just so used to being in the US that I’m subconsciously already locked into what I need to do.”
In what could be a preview to the Olympic final, Schooling came in second, with a time of 52.93 seconds, in the 100m fly at the ISCA International Senior Cup in March, sandwiched between fellow Olympic hopefuls
“You can take people out of any field and put them anywhere ... You’re going to hear them talk about different things, but the mindset is all the same, and that just says it all”