Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Golden start but then Chad medal dream takes a dip
Will City’s Pep pick his best? Gerda tipped for greatness Simbine believes relay record beckons for SA’s sprinters
CHAD LE CLOS’ pursuit of history at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games hit a snag yesterday where he won the 50m butterfly gold medal but missed out on silverware in his other two featured finals.
South Africa’s golden boy was hoping to become the joint-most decorated athlete at the Commonwealth Games as he looked to extend his total tally of medals over two showpieces to 18.
Le Clos still has a theoretical chance of matching the record if he chooses to do the 4x200m freestyle relay, although he has previously indicated he was unlikely to include it in his repertoire.
The London 2012 Olympic champion and Ryan Coetzee gave the country a goldbronze on the second day of the Games in the men’s 50m butterfly final on Thursday.
Le Clos was slow out of the blocks in the sprint event but recovered well to hit the wall in a time of 23.37 seconds.
Dylan Carter of Trinidad and Tobago touched in second place in 23.67 with Coetzee clocking 23.73.
“I am very happy, it couldn’t have gone better, silver or gold but it all means the same to me right now, it is my first international medal and I mean doing it with Chad... it is definitely something I wasn’t expecting. I am very, very proud of it,” said Coetzee.
“Before the heats, a medal wasn’t even in the aim, if I oet into the final it would be fantastic and if I swim a 24 in the final that is my ‘happy moment’.
“I went 23 in the morning and I went ‘oh, okay let’s see if I can get a top five.’”
The wave of euphoria turned into a ripple shortly after Le Clos collected his gold, when his record-breaking bid hit a snag as he finished seventh in the 200m freestyle with a time of 1:47.20.
Le Clos adopted a different race plan as he took it fast, leading the field after the first two laps before fading over the final 100 metres.
“I’m very happy, I’ve never won a 50m fly in the long course, I am very chuffed, but I am a bit disappointed not getting onto the podium in the 200m freestyle and the relay,” Le Clos said.
“We did our best, but it is what it is. It is a bit disappoint- ing, but it isn’t going to change my week I still want to win my individual races.”
In his final appearance on the night, Le Clos tried in vain to get the 4x100m freestyle relay onto the podium, posting the second fastest split in the final with a time of 47.97.
The quartet eventually finished in sixth place with a time of 3:17.27, leaving Le Clos’ record-attempt almost in tatters.
Taking confidence from the medal-winning performance of her compatriots, Tatjana Schoenmaker broke Penny Heyns’ South African 50m breaststroke record from 1999.
She knocked 0.01 off the previous record in the final with a time of 30.82, and just missed out on a place on the podium.
“It was actually a quite nice race, I was just focusing on myself and not on the race, getting that time is just unbelievable,” Schoenmaker said.
“The 200m breaststroke is obviously a bit further than the 50m but hopefully I can swim my best and get to my PB as well.”
London 2012 Olympic gold medallist Cameron van der Burgh will have his first shot at a medal after he qualified for the 100m breaststroke final.
He finished second behind world record- holder Adam Peaty of England, who touched first in an impressive 58.59 with Van der Burgh posting a time of 59.74.
“I am very happy, there is no sense in going out and giving it a big one now… I am looking forward to tomorrow’s final,” Van der Burgh said.
“I think the final will be faster for sure, but it is not a world-record pool, so it is all about racing.”
Featuring at her second Games, Erin Gallagher will also be competing for a medal in today’s 50m freestyle final after she clocked 25.03 in her semi-final.
Meanwhile, the Proteas Netball team looked good to open their Games campaign on a high going into the final quarter of their match against Jamaica.
They led by a meagre one point and only needed to keep the intensity, but the wheels came off in the final 15 minutes with Jamaica racking up the goals to claim a 57-46 victory.
The defeat is a major blow to the Proteas’ medal ambitions and they will have to make a serious step-up later in the tournament when they take on the number-one ranked team in the world, Australia.
It was a tit-for-tat battle for most of the encounter with the Proteas taking a 5-goal lead after the first quarter before the teams drew level at the break.
South Africa managed to get one goal over the tall Jamaicans, but they ran away with it in the final quarter scoring 20 points to eight.
“Congratulations to Jamaica – they were certainly able to bring out in that end bit because of their experience, they have eight players playing out on the international arena and that is what I am trying to build with South Africa,” Plummer said.
“The pressure at the time we let ourselves down in that last quarter by just feeding the ball too high.” SOUTH AFRICA finally got the relay team it has been dreaming of for the past four years, now it was up to the athletes to produce the goods.
National 100m record-holder Akani Simbine is adamant South Africa is the team to beat at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Australia.
A quartet consisting of Simbine as the anchor, Anaso Jobodwana, Clarence Munyai, and Henricho Bruintjies has the potential to shatter the South African record that was set at Glasgow 2014.
While Simbine has a realistic chance of winning a medal in the 100m at the Games, he fantasises about the possibilities of a double gold with a victory in the 4x100 relay.
“I think it would always be nice to have more than one gold, the relay gold would be a great one for South African athletics because we’ve been saying for the last four years now that we have a quality relay team and they could win a medal,” Simbine said.
“It’s always been we could, we could, we could but we didn’t and now we have an opportunity at a major competition to go and win a gold medal.”
Four years ago, former national record-holder Simon Magakwe anchored a relay team that included Bruintjies, Simbine and Ncincilili Titi to a new South African record of 38.35 seconds.
South Africa has since then hardly performed as a relay team or had many opportunities to, first train together, and secondly race at a major championship.
At the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing the relay team failed dismally due to a lack of preparations when a mistake at the first change over between Bruintjies and Jobodwana ended their charge for silverware in the heats.
South Africa failed to send teams to the IAAF World Relays in 2014, 2015, and 2017 failing to capitalise on the rising sprinting revolution.
The country has produced five sub- 10 second athletes since 2014 but it is yet to transform this into relay success.
Simbine believes South Africa’s time has come to show the world that it is not an empty revolution starting at the Games.
“Comparing ourselves against Jamaica or the Brits, the way I look at it we have a better team than them,” Simbine said.
“I think our chances are very high going there and getting the gold, but it is just a matter of putting the sessions together and getting the baton around.
“I am very positive about the Commonwealth Games in the sense of the 100m and the 4x100m relay team.”
Simbine will back into the blocks in the 100m heats on Sunday on the first day of the track and field programme.
After featuring in both the 2016 Olympic and the 2017 World Championships final and with only two five-placed finishes to show for it, Simbine said he was ready to get the monkey off his back.
“In the past when I competed at a major event I had a mindset of just wanting to get through each round. It was a case of I will see what will happen if I get to qualify for a semi-final, and then I see what happens if I get to the final,” said the Tuks sprinter.
“But my mental approach has changed. I now just see ‘gold’. I believe I am worth a gold medal. I have done the work, and I am at a point where I can get it. I want to make South Africa proud.”