Joseph Schooling is heading to the United States to return to his high school coach, Sergio Lopez, in a bid to defend his gold medal at the Olympics in Tokyo this year.

Been thinking to return since July last year

The 24-year-old told The Straits Times that he had been thinking of returning to his former mentor since July 2019, after crashing out at the World Championships in Gwangju.

During the meet, he failed to make it to the semi-finals in his pet event, the 100m butterfly.

"Sergio and I go way back. He's my high school coach and we have always had good camaraderie together, and developed a really good relationship," Schooling said during the interview.

"I just like what Sergio does on a personal level, but also in the pool, and I think he inspires me to be the best version that I can be on a day to day basis."

In an Olympic video, he also gave huge credit to Lopez, whom he said gave him "a wake-up call" when he lost focus and motivation after crashing out in the London Olympics preliminaries in 2012.

"I was in and out of it, I didn't want to swim anymore. I didn't want to go through it, I wasn't focused at all."

"Sergio, after a while, got pretty mad that I wasn't bouncing back from it. We had a huge falling out, we didn't speak to each other for two weeks," Joseph said.

"I think that was when my wake-up call came."

After the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in December 2019, Schooling spent two-and-a-half weeks with Lopez in the States.

Over there, Schooling said he realised that it was the place he needed to be to take his swimming to the next level leading up to the Olympics.

Returned to Singapore in early 2019 but struggled to find peak form

Schooling turned professional in March 2018, graduating from the University of Texas in the same year.

He returned to Singapore in early 2019, training full-time under national head coach and performance director Stephan Widmer and national training centre head coach Gary Tan.

However, he struggled to find his peak form, slumping in the Singapore National Swimming Championship in June 2019 and barely won his pet event at SEA Games last year.

While Schooling has qualified for the 100m butterfly event at the Olympics, there were concerns raised over his weight, which had gone up to 86kg, during SEA Games.

His weight has since dropped to 79.5kg, according to ST.

Schooling rejected the idea that him returning to Lopez was a result of the criticism of the team assembled by the Singapore Swimming Association.

"The coaches here do a great job. They're some of the best coaches in the world. If a place is not for you, it's just not for you," he told ST.

American swimmer Caeleb Dressel is likely to be the man to beat in Tokyo, who set a new world record of 49.50sec for the 100m butterfly at Gwangju in July 2019.

"It's going to take at least 49-mid to 49-low to win. It is going to take a lot quicker than what I swam in Rio to win," Schooling said.

"My form is a lot better... And right now, I'm killing it in practice."

"It's really been a turnaround in the last six or seven weeks since the Philippines."

Top image via Joseph Schooling/IG, Alchetron