‘Old’ Sweeney a late bloomer

AYRTON Sweeney, who landed his third qualifying time on the final day of the Commonwealth Games trials in Durban yesterday, has been among the toppies defying the myth that swimming is a youngster’s game.

Sweeney, 24, played second fiddle to matriculant Jarryd Baxter, 18, in the 200m individual medley yesterday, with second-year medical student Neil Fair, who turns 21 next month, taking third place.

Sweeney and Baxter had already secured two qualifying times each for Gold Coast 2018 but Fair was the last addition to the list of qualifiers, taking the total to 29.

Pretoria schoolgirl Duné Coetzee, 15, knocked off her third qualifying time as she broke the five-year-old age-group 400m freestyle record by more than a second as she posted 4min 14.53sec

By comparison, Sweeney, Brad Tandy, 26, and a couple others like 22-year-old Ryan Coetzee are all late bloomers, flourishing in their twenties, at least in terms of qualifying for senior teams.

Sweeney, also a part-time model, is one of the country’s rare Commonwealth medal hopes outside of Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos, being ranked third in the 400m individual medley and fifth in the 200m breaststroke.

Yet when he was 15 he did not even know what a podium looked like.

Sweeney, originally from Sea Point in Cape Town, achieved his first medal at a national age-group gala when he was 17.

“It was a bronze and I was happy with that.”

He believes the key to his longevity was not taking the sport too seriously while growing up. But he knew he wanted to go to a Games one day.

In late 2013, Sweeney moved to Graham Hill’s squad in Pinetown outside Durban and in 2015 he qualified for the world championships in Russia. But then he broke his right elbow in a freak accident.

After failing to qualify for the Rio Olympics, he took a couple of months off.

Sweeney was back in the national swimming squad for the 2017 world championships in July.

Since then he picked up silverware on the World Cup short-course series, boosting his confidence and earning prize money for the first time.

Now he is on track for his first longcourse medal at an international meet.