Best swimmers vie for honours in backstroke leg
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It’s no surprise that almost every back-stroker — past and present — has entered this race for the SA championships in Durban from tomorrow to Saturday.
The backstroke leg has been the Achilles heel of SA’s 4x100m medley relay, which boasts the fastest middle 200m in the world — Olympic champion Cameron van der Burgh in the breaststroke and world champion Chad Le Clos in the butterfly. It’s half an Olympic medal. The youngest swimmer in the backstroke field on Tuesday is 15-year-old American wunderkind Michael Andrew, whose SA parents moved to the US before he was born.
He has dual nationality and has yet to decide which country to represent. More than twice his age are grizzled 2008 Olympic veterans George du Rand, 32, and Gerhard Zandberg, 31, the prodigal son of SA swimming.
Zandberg and Swimming SA had a spectacular public fallout over the penalty imposed on him for an infringement at the 2013 world championships in Barcelona.
He was fined an effective R5 000 for sharing a room with his girlfriend because his assigned roommate, Van der Burgh, had fallen ill.
Fortunately Zandberg, a specialist 50m back-stroker, keeps coming back for more.
Also in the line-up are 2012 Olympians Charl Crous, Darren Murray and Sebastien Rousseau, who swam the backstroke leg of the relay at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
National coach Graham Hill has long favoured the men’s 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays over the medley, rating both as Olympic medal hopes MR RELIABLE: Chad Le Clos is the stand-out performer in both the relays next year. This gala at the Kings Park pool — which also serves as a trial for the world championships in Kazan, Russia, in August — will show how close, or far, they are.
Le Clos is the stand-out member of both relays, but what about his teammates?
Four Australians went below 1min 47sec in the 200m at their recent national championships.
In the 100m not only are there four Aussies going under 49, there are also four Frenchmen.
And you can bet they will be even faster next year. Le Clos’s understudies will have to shift gears now.
Le Clos, on track for at least three individual medals at next year’s Olympics, can’t swim the relays on his own.
Karin Prinsloo is probably the only SA female swimmer capable of qualifying for Russia, but her preparation has been hampered by illness and injury.
She is set to have her tonsils out after the championships.