Schooling, 21, claimed the first ever gold medal for Singapore with his Olympic record time of 50.39sec. American Phelps, 31, took an unprecedented three-way joint silver with a time of 51.14sec alongside South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh.
The event marked Phelps’ final solo men’s race, and while he said he was not happy to be denied a 23rd gold medal, he told The Guardian, “I’m proud of Joe,” who the champion swimmer had first met in 2008 after visiting a training camp in Singapore during the Beijing games.
Schooling remembered being “shell-shocked” when his hero Phelps visited his swimming club.