Ever since he has beaten the man with 23 Olympic gold medals, Singapore-born Joseph Schooling is undoubtedly the ‘Golden Boy’ of Singapore and the ‘Man of the hour’.
On Aug 12, Schooling was catapulted to fame when he secured a gold in the 100-meter butterfly during the Rio Olympics, leaving the silver for serial medalist Michael Phelps.
Unfortunately for 20-year-old Sabryna Salazar of Austin, Texas her chance for meeting 21-year-old Schooling is no more when she decided against returning a message on Tinder.
He was then just any seemingly ordinary human like us.
The psychology student at the University of Texas at Austin was watching the 100-meter butterfly race when she noticed something familiar.
“I was watching Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly race and then Joseph won,” she explained.
“I noticed the name sounded familiar and the announcers kept saying he was a Longhorn (a University of Texas athlete) so I looked back through my Tinder matches and found out it was him,” Salazar told the Daily Mail.
“Honestly, I just thought it was hilarious that we had matched at one point. It’s pretty crazy to think you’ve had an interaction with an Olympic gold medal winner.”
Salazar shared screenshots of their brief exchange to Twitter, calling her close encounter with the gold medallist ‘my greatest accomplishment’.
She then followed up the post with another to exclaim her regret, ‘and not replying to his message was my greatest failure’.
Image source: Twitter/sab
Well, we all have things we regret, this young fan girl just has a major one.
But not to lead you gals on, Schooling who set a new record of 50.39 seconds for the 100-meter butterfly event already has a girlfriend — Casey Shomaker.
Image source:Instagram/josephschooling
According to the Morning Ledger, Casey is currently pursuing her doctorate in law at the University of Texas and is an athlete herself. She had previously brought home the bronze medal in volleyball during the 2010 Junior Olympics.
She’s also known to be a supportive girlfriend and re-tweeted the post of Schooling winning gold with the caption, ‘And thus the kid has become the king.’ That says it all folks.
Sorry girl, you’re too little too late now.
