Cameron goes out with another gold

Cameron van der Burgh won the fifth world championship gold medal of his career on Wednesday and then confirmed his retirement.

The newly married 30-yearold‚ who recently relocated to London to pursue a career in finance‚ won the 100m breaststroke in a 56.01sec championship record at the short-course (25m pool) showpiece in Hangzhou‚ China.

Van der Burgh‚ the Olympic champion at London 2012 and silver medallist in Rio four years later‚ made the podium at every world championship gala in which he competed‚ starting with his debut as a teenager at the 2007 longcourse (50m pool) showpiece in Melbourne‚ amassing 17 medals in total.

Van der Burgh was chuffed with his victory.

“It means the world to me. It was my last race‚ so I am ex- tremely happy‚” he said.

“It is sad in a way, but I am happy to end on a high.

“The last 25m was the most pain I have ever had in my life in swimming‚ so it was a good way to finish.”

Van der Burgh edged Ilya Shymanovich of Belarus by nine-hundredths of a second.

In other SA action in China on the day‚ Chad Le Clos qualified for Thursday’s 100m butterfly final in which he will go up against new American star Caeleb Dressel.

Le Clos won his semifinal in 49.07‚ with Dressel going even faster in the other eliminator‚ finishing in 48.93.