Meyer finally earns Olympic selection
MICHAEL Meyer made an emotional return to the King’s Park pool last night as he finally earned the Olympic selection he painfully missed out on four years ago.
He was one of four South African swimmers — reigning Olympic 100m breaststroke champion Cameron van der Burgh, Sebastien Rousseau and Myles Brown were the others — to secure qualification for the Rio Games in August on the opening day of the national championships in Durban.
He has been training under coach Sergio Lopez in Singapore for the past year.
He was hugged by friends, one in tears, after his 4min 15.71sec in the 400m individual medley.
“This is just huge,” said Meyer, 23, who was exactly one second inside the qualifying mark.
He achieved a qualifying time in 2012, but was third in that final behind Chad Le Clos and Rousseau, and with countries allowed to enter only two swimmers per event, there was no room for him.
He hadn’t swum faster since that devastating evening until last night, when he led for half the race — through the second backstroke and third breaststroke.
But he was overhauled by a strong-finishing Rousseau in the final freestyle leg.
Rousseau touched first in a time of 4:14.75, short of his 4:11.11 national record. “I’m relieved,” Rosseau said, “No matter who you are, to get under the qualifying time is a relief.”
He has competed in the past two Olympics, said he had worked hard on his freestyle after the 2014 Commonwealth Games in which he lost his lead on the final leg and ended with bronze.
Brown, who missed out on the London Olympics qualifying time in 2012, was helped home by temporary training partner, Egyptian Marwan El Kamash, who led until the final length.
“Without Marwan it would have been tough,” admitted Brown, who touched in 3:48.86 to win by sevenhundredths of a second.
He was nearly two seconds lower than the qualifying mark; four years ago, he was two seconds outside of it.