A silver lining for Chad and Cameron
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s two swimming stars, Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh, showed in 2016 they were mortals after all.
While the year may not have gone completely to plan, the duo still carried the country’s swimming team at the Rio Olympics contributing three of the country’s 10 medals at the quadrennial showpiece.
Winning medals at two consecutive Games is no easy feat, and the fact they won silver instead of gold should in no way detract from their achievements.
Expecting three medals and hoping for a title defence in his favourite 200m butterfly event, Le Clos was gutted with his performances in Rio.
Four years ago at the London Olympics, he stunned the world when he outtouched American swimming legend Michael Phelps by a hair’s breadth in the 200m event before finishing second in the 100m butterfly.
Le Clos made a good start in Rio by winning the 200m freestyle silver medal in a new continental record time of 1:45.20, just 0.45 seconds behind Chinese champion Sun Yang.
This boded well for Le Clos’ charge for the butterfly events, but what followed was almost equal to the shock of four years earlier.
To add more hype to the match-up between Le Clos and Phelps, the South African was caught on camera shadow-boxing in the call room within a few metres of the American ahead of their 200m butterfly semi-final.
Phelps sat motionless staring in front of him and looking unimpressed by Le Clos’ moves.
While social media erupted over the incident, both Le Clos and Phelps denied they harboured any ill-feeling towards each other.
Phelps got his revenge on the South African as he hit the wall ahead of Le Clos, who could only manage fourth.
A gutted Le Clos uncharacteristically snubbed the media following the race, and only communicated his disappointment in a recorded message the following day.
“It was the worst performance of my career, there will never be a worse performance than that, no matter what happens,” Le Clos said.
“Like my dad said, we don’t cry for losing, we cry for winning, and as much as I want to cry, I said to myself worse things have happened to me this year
“This is not even the fifth worst thing that has happened to me over the last few months. I will take it on the chin, I will assess it, and I will move on.”
True to form Le Clos bounced back in a bizarre 100m butterfly final where he shared the silver medal with Phelps and Hungarian Laszlo Cseh, with Singapore’s Joseph Schooling upstaging the three heavyweights, winning in a time of 50.39 seconds.
By winning four medals over two Games – three silver and a gold – Le Clos became the country’s most decorated Olympian.
Van der Burgh in turn relinquished his 100m breaststroke title to British phenomenon Adam Peaty, who smashed his own world record for the gold medal.
Peaty touched the wall first in an incredible time of 57.13 seconds with Van der Burgh following in second place in 58.68, just 0.22 off his personal best.
Cody Miller of the United States won the bronze medal in a time of 58.87.
Van der Burgh nevertheless became only the second male Olympic 100m breaststroke champion to earn a podium place at consecutive Games. Former world-record holder Kosuke Kitajima of Japan won gold in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
Brad Tandy was the only other SA swimmer to feature in a Rio final, while lone female swimmer Michelle Weber finished in a creditable 18th place at her maiden Olympics in the women’s 10km open water event in a time of 1:59.05.
Tandy finished sixth in the men’s 50m freestyle final with a time 21.79 seconds after clocking a new personal best of 21.80 in his heat.
Le Clos found consolation at the Fina World Short-Course Championships in Windsor, Canada at the beginning of December where he claimed a rare back-to-back clean sweep of the butterfly events winning the 50m, 100m, and 200m titles, while adding the 200m freestyle silver medal.
He opened his campaign by winning the 200m butterfly in the third fastest time of all time, stopping the clock on 1:48.56, just 0.05 seconds off his world record time.
The double world record-holder then smashed the global 100m butterfly mark he set two years ago by nearly becoming the first swimmer to dip below 48 seconds in the event – he chopped 0.36 off his previous best to post a time of 48.08 seconds.
On the final day of the championships he won the 50m butterfly event in a time of 21.98 to complete the sweep.
Two years ago Le Clos became the first swimmer to win the 50m, 100m and 200m butterfly titles in Doha while also winning the 200m freestyle gold.
He nearly added the 200m freestyle title but this time around he touched second behind South Korea’s Park Taehwan. Van der Burgh also overcame the disappointment of missing out on a podium place in the 100m breaststroke, by finally adding the 50m gold medal to his long list of accolades.
In so doing Van der Burgh earned his first major title since the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.