Joseph Schooling, who won Singapore's first and only Olympic gold in 2016, confessed in August 2022 to consuming cannabis in Vietnam, was formally warned by the defence ministry and barred from further national-service leave to compete.
Schooling is the most decorated athlete in Singapore's history. At the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016 he won the 100-metre butterfly, beating the great Michael Phelps in the American's final Olympic race and delivering the city-state its first ever Olympic title. He achieved superstar status overnight, with his face on stamps and his name in the national conversation.
The confession came on August 30, 2022, when the Ministry of Defence revealed the 27-year-old had admitted consuming cannabis overseas in May, while on short-term disruption from full-time national service to compete at the Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi. He had not failed a drugs test; he came forward himself. At those Games he had won two gold medals and a bronze.
In a late-night Instagram story, Schooling apologised: he said he had given in to a moment of weakness after going through a very tough period of his life, that he demonstrated bad judgment, and that he was sorry for the hurt caused to his family and the young fans who looked up to him. His father had died of liver cancer the previous November, months after Schooling was eliminated in the heats defending his title at the Tokyo Olympics.
The punishment was swift. The defence ministry issued a formal warning, placed him on a supervised urine-test regime for six months, and ruled he would no longer be eligible for leave or disruption to train or compete for the rest of his national service, with up to nine months' detention in barracks for any subsequent drug abuse. Fellow national swimmer Amanda Lim, also investigated by the Central Narcotics Bureau over alleged overseas drug use, received a warning. Sport Singapore and the swimming association said they would review the case for further action.
In a country with some of the world's toughest drug laws, where consumption abroad can itself be an offence for citizens, the fall of the nation's greatest sporting hero dominated headlines for weeks. Schooling was set to miss the Cambodia SEA Games and the Hangzhou Asian Games, and his road back to elite competition, with national service running to early 2024, looked vanishingly narrow.
The episode also reignited debate in Singapore about the pressures heaped on young sporting heroes and the adequacy of support systems for athletes coming out of the spotlight. Schooling's apology was widely praised for its candour, even as the country wrestled with its disappointment.