Joseph Schooling Is Hunting The 100m Butterfly World Record
2017 FINA World Championships
July 23-30, 2017Budapest, Hungary
Dagály Aquatics Arena
SCHEDULE
LIVE RESULTS
Joseph Schooling (SIN)
WR: 100m Butterfly -- 49.82, Michael Phelps (USA), 2009
2017 Best: 50.96 (+1.14)
The United States' Michael Phelps and Michael (Milorad) Cavic of Serbia had a legendary battle of words -- and then followed it up in the pool -- at the 2009 World Championships in Rome. Long story short: Cavic was wearing Arena's seemingly unstoppable polyurethane X-glide. Phelps -- donning Speedo's allegedly lesser LZR Racer -- was unhappy with all of the records going down due to the suits, basically saying he didn't need one to swim fast. Cavic was talking a lot of trash -- even saying he would give Phelps the same suit so they could go head to head. Phelps declined, won the final, and broke the world record to become the first man ever under 50 seconds. Cavic touched second in 49.95. End of story.
To this day, nobody else has dipped below the 50-second barrier. However, 2016 Olympic champ Joseph Schooling of Singapore has expressed clear intent (in the video above) that he is gunning for it. Schooling won in Rio with a time of 50.39 and less than 10 days ago went 50.96 at the Sectional Championships in Austin, Texas. However, there is a big jump from 50.9 to 49.8 in that short of a time frame.
Schooling also won't go without any competition. Current world No. 1 Caeleb Dressel of the U.S. posted a 50.87 at nationals in June. Olympic medalists Chad le Clos of South Africa and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary will be hunting for the top spot on the podium as well.
Regardless of a world record going down or not, this is one of the most highly anticipated races of the meet.
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