SINGAPORE — Singapore's new swimming sensation Joseph Schooling signed off from the Southeast Asian Games Thursday with a record ninth gold medal, confirming his status as the star of the region's biggest multi-sports event. A class above his rivals, the 19-year-old won gold in all nine events he entered and set 10 SEA Games records along the way.
"That was goal going into this meet and I'm happy to have reached my expectations and my targets," he said after clinching his ninth gold medal, in the Singaporean 4x100 meter medley relay.
"It's just one step forward to my ultimate dream and I think I'm on track for achieving that."
Based in the United States, training and studying at the University of Texas, Schooling is already setting his sights on bigger things.
His immediate goal is this year's world championships in Russia, where he will trim his workload back to three events, all butterfly, before turning his focus to next year's Rio Olympics.
"This was just a small stepping stone to what I'm trying to achieve," he said.
Inspired by Schooling, Singapore finished the six-day swimming program with 23 gold medals from 38 events.
Schooling's 18-year-old teammate Quah Zheng Wen, another exciting prospect from the tiny city-state, won seven golds and medals in each of the 12 events he entered.
Vietnam finished second with 10 golds, eight of which were won by Florida-based teenager Nguyen Thi Anh Vien, a gold medalist at last year's Youth Olympics.
With Vietnam unable to enter a relay team, the 18-year-old competed in 12 individual events, winning eight of them and finishing on the podium in two others.
On Thursday, she squeezed every ounce of energy to win the 200m breaststroke, one of her weakest events, then dived straight back in the pool after her medal ceremony and came fourth in the 100m butterfly, as her exhausting schedule finally caught up with her.
Singaporean pride also received a setback when the 10-man host crashed out of the football competition in the group stages with a 1-0 loss to Indonesia.
Vietnam also had success on the track as it won the women's 4x400m relay, and Duong Van Thai and Do Thi Thao added the men's and women's 1,500m titles to its 800m crowns.
Indonesia's Triyaningsih, who stands just 147 cm (4 feet 9 inches tall, completed a distance double when she easily won the 10,000m from barefoot Vietnamese Pham Thi Hue.
Badminton star Lee Chong Wei suffered a blow when Malaysia lost 3-2 to Indonesia in the men's team event, bringing his first SEA Games in 10 years to a premature end.
Lee, recently returned from an eight-month doping ban, beat Firman Abdul Kholik 21-19, 21-10 but Ihsan Maulana Mustofa won the deciding fifth rubber against Mohamad Arif.
Elsewhere Singapore's smooth running of the SEA Games hit a hiccup when several cyclists complained of food poisoning after the men's and women's time trials.
Organizers launched an investigation after "a bout of loose stools that has affected a few athletes early this morning", they said.
Malaysian rider Muhammad Fauzan Ahmad Lutfi blamed a dodgy dinner for his performance after he finished 11th, the Straits Times said.
"Two other riders, including my roommate, are down too. I think it was the chicken and the curry egg at dinner," he was quoted as saying. — Agencies
