On the final night of swimming in Kuala Lumpur, Schooling propelled Singapore’s 4x100m medley relay team to victory in 3min 37.46sec, beating the Games record they set two years ago in their home pool.
Schooling, Quah Zheng Wen, Lionel Khoo and Darren Lim whooped and cheered as they left the pool deck, after the convincing win left Singapore on a table-topping 19 golds for the meet.
Schooling, the Olympic 100m butterfly champion, increased Singapore’s narrow lead by just under two seconds in the butterfly leg. Their eventual margin of victory was 2.88sec over Indonesia.
“It’s a great feeling. What’s even better is that I think we had a great team display over the past six days,” said Schooling, 22.
“It’s been a long meet but I think there are a lot of positives I can take going into the new year. I’m looking forward to getting back in the swing of things.”
Schooling’s six golds, which include three individual titles, come after he could only take 100m butterfly bronze at the world championships, a year after his stunning Olympic win.
“That was a great race by all of us collectively. We beat the national record with solid swims all around. I couldn’t have done it without these guys. They’re the ones that did the bulk of the work,” he said.
Diving sweep
Earlier Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Anh Vien, nicknamed “Little Mermaid”, flashed a victory sign as she snared her eighth win of the competition in the women’s 200m freestyle, clocking a Games-record 1:59.24.
Her 17-year-old compatriot Nguyen Hoy Hoang smashed the Games’ men’s 1,500m record by 11 seconds as he swam 15:20.10 to win by a distance.
And Amanda Lim won the women’s 50m freestyle for the fifth consecutive SEA Games, underlining Singapore’s dominance of the swimming pool.
In diving, Olympic silver-medallist Pandelela Rinong and Gabriel Gilbert Daim won the 10m synchronised platform as Malaysia claimed the first three titles in the sport.
Wendy Ng led a Malaysian one-two in the women’s 3m springboard and Ooi Tze Liang won the men’s 3m springboard, as Malaysia set off on their bid to sweep the diving competition.
Malaysia also had success in shooting, as Jonathan Wong upset Vietnam’s Olympic champion Hoang Xuan Vinh to win the men’s 10m air pistol competition.
The hosts picked up further wins in water skiing, indoor hockey, lawn bowls, taekwondo, gymnastics and show jumping as they added 14 gold medals to reach 82, 33 ahead of Vietnam on the overall table.
High jumper Nauraj Singh edged fellow Malaysian Lee Hup Wei on countback after they both cleared 2.24m, equalling the Games record, while Malaysia’s Rayzam Shah won the 110m hurdles.
Thailand left it late before beating Myanmar 1-0 to reach the men’s football final, thanks to a stoppage-time header from Chenrop Samhaodi.
And Thai top seed Luksika Kumkhum, the world number 180, won the women’s singles tennis final 6-0, 6-1 against Anna Clarice Patrimonio of the Philippines.