All, if not most of us know you as Joseph Schooling the swimmer. Can you give us a glimpse of the real Joseph Schooling in terms of personality and temperament?
Yeah the best way to describe me would be there are two different personalities — one in the pool and one outside the pool. I’m definitely more laid-back compared to when I’m in practice or racing, I just don’t embody or see the need to carry that kind of aggression, that kind of “let’s go get it” or “get in your face” kind of mentality outside the pool. So I would say I’m the complete opposite; I’m laid back and down for anything — that’s honestly the biggest difference between me being in and out of the pool.
What spurred you to become a professional athlete?
Yeah, I started swimming not to become a pro athlete. The first step was to be water safe and that was passed down from my parents. Being a pro athlete never really came into mind, all I wanted to do was win the Olympics and I guess having success in the pool is the obvious pathway to turn pro because you need the financial support. It’s also great to work with different brands such as TAG Heuer; you learn so much and like I said it’s a viable means to carry on my swimming career which I never grew up envisioning doing.
What did you hope to achieve when you first became a professional athlete and have those goals evolved throughout your career?
Yeah, when I turned pro, working with brands gave me an insight that there is so much more you can do not only for the people around you but also for the masses. Through the right messaging and campaigns, we want to send out the message that if you’re going to be an athlete, embody some of the qualities that TAG Heuer embodies such as excellence and precision which is exactly what I do on a day-to-day basis in the pool. I try to be the best that I can and see how can we pass these messages down to kids that not necessarily have the dreams to be an Olympic champion. Anyone can embody these things, it’s to which level you wish to do them at. So just because you see me on TV with all the bright lights doesn’t mean that you cant be your own excellent version of that. This is just one of the ways society perceives you as.
Can you talk us through life as a professional swimmer?
It’s a lot of sacrifices. Michael (Phelps) did a wonderful commercial with Under Armour and its tagline was “it’s what you do in the dark that puts you in the light”. That’s probably the most accurate cliche tagline I’ve ever heard but it’s so true. My day is unglamorous, it involves me waking up at stupid hours of the morning to go jump in the cold pool followed by a tough weights session or dry land session or circuit followed by another unglamorous gruelling pool session in the afternoon. There’s nothing glamorous about this lifestyle at all except at the end of the day when you do have a chance to stand on top of that podium, that’s all everyone sees, they don’t see the work that goes behind.
What is the one biggest sacrifice you had to make when pursuing swimming professionally?
These sacrifices change the older I get but right now at 26 years old I’d say the biggest sacrifice is probably not being able to spend as much time with my friends as I’d want to because I need to get all the rest that I can. So at this phase of my life, it’s probably giving up the time constraints to be able to do what I want to do in the pool.
Rio 2016 was obviously a major turning point in your career. Can you still recall the emotions of that historic moment?
I was looking around me while on the podium and people were going nuts. I had people from all sorts of different countries calling out my name and I was thinking to myself like damn is this is actually happening? It’s so surreal and it’s a feeling I can’t really describe. I can feel all the different emotions that came up just by thinking back about that wonderful moment.
Has life in general panned out the way you thought it would after winning gold at Rio 2016?
I mean honestly, I didn’t really know what life was gonna be like after Rio. Like my whole life, I just thought of getting to the podium you know and then I didn’t really spend a single second to think about what I was gonna be like after. And frankly, I don’t think anyone could, no one’s ever been in this position before so we’re writing the script as we went along and I think naturally, the byproduct of that is you’re going to make a lot of mistakes, you’re gonna learn a lot through experience, through trials and tribulations so that was the part that I really had to adjust to because for the longest time it was just school, swim, repeat. I was in that fixed cycle but you then bring in a lot of variables. An athlete lifestyle is best suited for very strict and routine kinds of schedules and for this as much as we try to keep a schedule and a routine that we can control so many different factors that we can’t control were added in. It’s as simple as walking down the streets.
How do you handle the pressure and stress of going into regional and international competitions with the expectations of the country on your shoulders after becoming a gold medallist?
You need to have a strong sense of identity, you need to know who you are and like you said like when we started this interview, we only know you as Joseph the swimmer and it’s exactly what I’m hitting on. It’s like if I stop winning, will I still have all the support and this adoration? These were just the intangibles that I couldn’t control you know but fast forward the past five years I believe the first half of it was a struggle and the second half was just realising that at the end of the day I have a wonderful family and great people and friends around me that care for me. They don’t care about how I do in the pool so why are you placing value on people judging you by your achievements and that was something that I had to internalise and truly process.
Do you have any pre-swim rituals that you have to perform prior to a race?
No, I’m not a superstitious guy, I don’t really have a set ritual. My only set ritual is knowing that I’ve put in all the work, this is more through assurances. I think people do rituals and they have these superstitions just to get their mind in the right mindset. I don’t have any of those extreme superstitions but for me, my superstition is I need to be 100% in practice to be able to believe that I can do what I want to do at the end of the day if that is a superstition at all really.
Leading up to Tokyo 2020 last year, how did you react when you heard of its cancellation?
I was pretty relieved you know, that I have more time to prepare for it. Now in hindsight, whether more time was a good thing I would probably argue the opposite side having gone through all of this. I wasn’t as shocked or devastated as a lot of people were. It’s such a fluid situation where you can’t really hold onto what has transpired, you only get ready for what’s about to happen.
Then there was the 100m butterfly heat where you got knocked out. Are the wounds still fresh 2 months on?
No, I don’t think they’re fresh. I think I’ve internalised them, we’ve spotted a lot of things that we thought would work but backfired seriously. But the wounds have healed, I’m slighted but not to the point of “damn, why am I even swimming”. I’m slighted to the point of “damn, these are all the things we could’ve done better last year, let’s reflect on those, apply those things to the new season and let’s go get something again.”
You talked about hindsight earlier, is there one thing you feel that you could have controlled or done differently to perhaps change an outcome?
I would say the length of the season will be number one. The only reason I don’t say competition is because given the circumstances of COVID, competition was very very very difficult to find and what I mean by competition is high-level competition so with that being out of my hands I would say timeframe. I thought more time was better but if you do something and you’re stuck in the same gear for too long then you can’t peak 15 or 16 months down the line; it’s because it’s due to poor planning and it was just an unforeseen circumstance that has happened. So I would plan my seasons a little better, in terms of what part of the year we need to hit certain targets and not just train nonstop expecting to be able to put everything together down the line.
Every athlete approaches defeat differently, how do you process it?
Yeah initially in 2017 I think I gave the most foul-mouthed interview after I got third at the World Championship and it boiled down to poor preparation. I was just being a brat essentially there is no way to sugarcoat that. But now moving forward in 2021, I believe that was one of the hardest interviews I’ve had to give, hardest in the sense of giving an interview in shock while keeping my composure, gathering my thoughts and delivering exactly what I wanted to say with everything that’s run by. Sometimes it’s a struggle for words and it was but at the end of the day, you just have to accept what has happened and just move on — I believe I did as best as I could and I couldn’t have done it any better.
Does this defeat at Tokyo 2020 sting a little more compared to others or do you treat it just like any other?
I think it stings less because I’m at a mature point of my career where I understand things like this can happen and sometimes it’s not your day and just because it was five years ago doesn’t mean it’s going to happen five years later. I accept a more fluid environment and atmosphere rather than always try to be type A, go step-by-step which is why I think the two months that have passed felt like a year because I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now. We’ve got the right formula, and I’m comfortable and proud of the progress we have made so it was a very quick mind shift going from “screw it, let’s get over this” to “let’s go for the next one”.
Now that you’re back in Singapore, what are you up to these days — are you back in the pool already or are you taking time off?
I’m back in the pool already, this is my fifth week back. I took about two weeks out of the pool after Stay Home Notice (SHN) just to spend time with mum and dad, play some golf, catch up with friends and right now for the last four or five weeks I’ve been back in the pool swimming.
You were on the receiving end of some nasty comments after being knocked out. Has it affected you or your family and friends in any way at all?
Yeah, I think it affected my family more than I did, especially my dad. My mum doesn’t talk about it much but my dad is usually more outspoken about it. I understand why they are because they’re protective of me and my dad likes a certain way of doing things so when he hears all these comments it’s hard for him to digest. For me, I’ve been on the receiving end of criticism, scepticism for the past 10 years so I’m used to it. It used to affect me but now you just listen, use it as motivation and you just carry on with what you’re doing.
There was an outpouring of support from Singaporeans in the aftermath of the situation. Has that galvanised you for future competitions?
Yeah, I’d say so. it’s always nice having 5 1/2 million people behind you. I’d also say that the amount of support was quite shocking to me, I thought there was going to be way more hate than support and it was a nice thing to come back to. It made me realise that you know your identity as a swimmer but at the same time if you have this many people supporting you then over the past four or five years you must’ve been doing something right. So I do draw inspiration on that when I need to, but at the end of the day like I said I’m just trying to be the best version of myself and if I am, I know the results will come.
Has anyone come up to you while you’re out and about to offer their support and encouragement?
A ton. I’d say it’s about one out of every three conversations I have when I’m walking anywhere. There are different ways people say it, depending on where we are, but the whole messaging is always “don’t care about what people say, you just keep doing you.”
News of your imminent enlistment for National Service is out. Is Paris 2024 on the agenda?
It’s a long way but never say never. Right now I’m just focusing on the next year. I’m going through pre-enlistment procedures right now and outside of that, I’m still training in the pool.
Finally, how would you sum up your career — this journey — thus far?
A rollercoaster ride for sure. There are more ups and downs in the last five years than I’ve had to face in 21 years of my life before that and it’s been a challenge that has been frustrating and tough at times but looking back in hindsight, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I believe things do happen for a reason and at the end of the day, the people that persevere the most are going to be the ones that come out on top. So never give up, just keep doing you, be who you are and you can’t really control much more than that so why worry about it.
Joseph Schooling reflects on Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, life as a professional swimmer and his plans for the future in an exclusive interview with Men’s Folio. Joseph Schooling is wearing a TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300.
