GOLDEN ARROW
Most decorated Commonwealth Games swimmer
Chad Le Clos swims to a new record
● Chad Le Clos enjoys making history, but he loves a good brawl even more.
He did both last night, becoming the first man to land three straight Commonwealth Games 200m butterfly crowns, and then needling the Australian favourites in the 100m freestyle semifinals ahead of tonight’s decider.
He went toe to toe with their Olympic 100m freestyle champion, Kyle Chalmers, and beat him in their semifinal showdown. They’ll do round two tonight, but there’ll be two more Aussies in the ring, top seed Cameron McEvoy and young star Jack Cartwright.
“Tonight was all about history . . . and tomorrow’s going to be a humdinger,” said Le Clos, who led the ’fly race from start to finish, touching in 1min 54.00sec to break his own championship record and secure the 14th Games medal of his career.
That makes him the most decorated Commonwealth swimmer yet, overhauling another Australian, Michael Wenden, the only other male to claim a hat-trick of titles, king of the 100m freestyle from 1966 to 1974.
Tatjana Schoenmaker ended a 64-year drought for SA’s able-bodied female swimmers, winning the country’s first gold since legendary backstroker Joan Harrison at Vancouver 1954.
She bagged SA’s second gold of the day and fourth of Gold Coast 2018 with a storming swim in the 200m breaststroke, winning by more than a second in 2:22.02 as she smashed Suzaan van Biljon’s African record from the 2012 Olympics.
Even Schoenmaker was surprised by her time, which would have earned bronze at the last Olympics.
“Yes, I was massively surprised,” admitted Schoenmaker, who showed emotion on the podium as the anthem played.
“I saw underwater I touched first, so I was super happy, and when I turned around and saw the 22 I was like ‘okay, that’s a bonus’.”
Cameron van der Burgh, 100m breaststroke champion eight years ago and runnerup in 2014, was relegated to the bronze behind the English pair of Adam Peaty and James Wilby.
Afterwards the veteran, who turns 30 next month, indicated he might not stick around until the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
He was pleased with the result given his limited training time amid business commitments; just 40 minutes of swimming and an hour of Crossfit a day.
Le Clos, still eyeing three more medals at the Games here, makes reaching the podium look so easy, but it isn’t, as weightlifter Mona Pretorius can testify. She broke three national records as she took the 63kg bronze, 12 years since making her Commonwealth debut as a promising teenager at Melbourne 2006.
Two disasters followed, at Delhi 2010 and Glasgow 2014, but yesterday she ascended the podium after clearing an overall 206kg, one of three national marks she set.
The other two were her 91kg snatch, and then a clean and jerk of 115kg.
“It still feels like a dream come true. I woke up relaxed, which is a first, because normally I’m a bit nervous,” said Pretorius.
With four gold and three bronze, SA were fifth on the medals table yesterday.
Tatjana Schoenmaker ended a 64-year drought for SA’s female swimmers