2024-04-02 17:26:47
With fewer than six million inhabitants, Singapore is one of the smaller countries in the world. The number of top athletes is correspondingly small. One of them is now resigning.
Singapore’s only Olympic champion has announced his retirement: Swimmer Joseph Schooling, who surprisingly defeated his idol Michael Phelps in Rio in 2016, is retiring from competitive sports at the age of 28. “Today begins a new chapter. I am grateful for every experience that swimming has brought into my life,” he wrote on Instagram.
Schooling caused a stir in Brazil with his gold medal in the 100m butterfly. At the Olympic Games in Tokyo in the summer of 2021, he was eliminated from this route in the preliminary round.
“The victories were exhilarating, the defeats humbling. Together, they created a resilience within me that I will carry into my next chapter,” he continued.
Schooling caused controversy in Singapore in 2022 when he confessed to using cannabis abroad. Singapore has some of the strictest drug laws in the world. Schooling received a warning and was required to submit supervised urine tests for six months.