Chad’s medals hat-trick lights up the World Cup

Olympian Chad le Clos claimed an impressive three medals at the opening leg of the 2018 Fina Swimming World Cup in Kazan, Russia, at the weekend.

Le Clos was the top performer, winning gold in the 200m butterfly and silver in the 100m butterfly and the 200m freestyle.

He rounded off his performance in the pool with the 200m freestyle silver medal on the final evening, clocking 1:48.10, behind the US’s Blake Pieroni, who led from start to finish to win in a time of 1:47.32.

The South African swimming star brushed off a surprise defeat from the first day to turn in a gritty fight to win the 200m butterfly gold medal on Saturday against Russia’s Daniil Phakomov.

At the last turn, Pakhomov had a 0.72s lead but Le Clos surged over the final half lap to out-touch the Russian, posting a time of 1:56.58, to Phakomov’s 1:56.90, with Hungarian David Verraszto finishing in third place with 1:59.03.

The Olympic gold medallist was edged out in the final of the 100m butterfly on Friday with the US’s Michael Andrew winning by a whisker in a time of 51.96, beating Le Clos to the wall by 0.04s with the South African sharing the silvermedal position with Russia’s Egor Kuimov as they touched at the same time of 52.00.

Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Ryan Coetzee just missed out on a medal, finishing behind Le Clos and Kuimov and posting a new personal best of 52.10, while in the 100m freestyle he swam to another personal best of 49.88 to finish fifth.

The next leg of the Fina Swimming World Cup Series will be held in Doha from September 13 to September 15.