Singapore exploded in celebration  after homegrown swimming hero Joseph Schooling beat US legend Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly in Rio to win the tiny republic’s first ever Olympic gold.

The 21-year-old Asian champion set a new Olympic record of 50.39sec as he edged out his American idol Phelps, who ended in a sensational dead heat for silver alongside South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary.

• Remarkably Phelps finished in a three-way tie for the silver — the 27th medal of his career — along with South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary, as they all clocked the same time of 51.14 seconds.

• Phelps will now have to wait to see if he can add to his 23 gold medals when he is expected to take part in Saturday’s men’s 4x100m freestyle medley.

• Known at home for smashing national records and taking multiple titles in regional competitions, Schooling had held the hopes of Singapore, a Southeast Asian island nation of less than six million, which had only won two silvers and two bronzes since it joined the Olympic fold in 1948.