Dreams Do Come True: Fan Beats His Childhood Hero, Michael Phelps To Win Olympics Gold

Source: Roger James Hamilton

A special occasion at the Olympics for Singapore
It was back in 2008, a 13-year-old teenager Joseph Schooling got to meet his hero, one of the all-time greatest Olympians, Michael Phelps, who had visited Singapore before the start of the Beijing Olympics. Eight years later, Schooling, now 21, creates history by beating Phelps to bag the gold in the 100m Butterfly finals. The specialty of the occasion is double great as this is for the first time a Singaporean wins an Olympic gold.

Nail-biting finish
Schooling touched the wall in 50.39 seconds, one second ahead of an extraordinary joint-silver finish of 51.14s shared by American great Michael Phelps, South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Hungarian Laszlo Cseh. Schooling also smashed Phelp’s Olympics 2008 record of 50.58 seconds.

It was a dream come true for Schooling when he got an opportunity to swim in the same race with Phelps at London Olympics 2012. That was the year Joseph first qualified for the Olympics in London, but then disaster struck when he was told his goggles weren’t Olympics standard just before the race. He rushed to get replacements, but ended up getting a poor time in his heats and didn’t get through to the semi-finals.

Another nation which won its first gold
Phelps, who has already won 4 Gold Medals in Rio, missed out on winning his 23rd Olympic Gold against Schooling.

When Singapore celebrated their first ever gold medal on Saturday, Fiji on the other hand, won their first ever Olympics medal and the glory came in the form of gold after Fiji’s rugby team beat Great Britain winning by 43-7.