Our Olympic champion Joseph Schooling qualified for the men's 100m butterfly final at the FINA World Championships in Budapest this Saturday morning with a timing of 50.78s.

You may think that it was a walk in the park for our first gold Olympic champion but it wasn't.

Schooling was second on the turn before he caught up with the leading swimmer.

And finished first in his semi-final.

Check out the jubilant scene from the Singapore camp -- Schooling's mum, May, is in the crowd.

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It was a good win for Schooling in the first semi-finals but he is 4th overall in the semi-finals.

American swimmer Caeleb Dressel (50.07s), Great Britain's James Guy (50.67s) and Hungary's Kristof Milak (50.77s) were ahead of Schooling in the second semi-finals.

Schooling's main rival for the 100m butterfly final crown is Dressel, who has already claimed three gold medals here in the 100m freestyle, 4x100m freestyle relay and 4x100m mixed medley relay.

What does this mean for Schooling?

Schooling won his gold medal in Rio last year with an Olympic record timing of 50.39s.

This means that he has to be faster than his gold medal timing to have a good chance of beating Dressel tonight.

Top photo from Getty Images.