Le Clos takes 100m butterfly

CHAD Le Clos delivered an emphatic performance to win the 100m butterfly in Monte Carlo last night, and now the South African knows who his greatest rivals at the world championships in August will be.

The three-gala Mare Nostrum series in Europe, which came to a close in Monaco, showed they would come from Japan.

Le Clos led from the start before clocking a 51.66sec meet record to down American star Ryan Lochte (52.64) and Japan’s Takuro Fujii (52.69).

The Durban star probably needed this confidence-booster after being roundly beaten by Fujii’s compatriots Daiya Seto and Kosuke Hagino the previous day.

Le Clos was downed by Seto in the 200m butterfly – the event the South African won at the Olympics – and he was beaten by both Hagino and Seto in the 200m individual medley.

Le Clos was second in the fly and fifth in the medley.

The double butterfly world champion’s plan is to add the 200m freestyle and 200m IM to his repertoire at the world championships in Russia.

At least he qualified for the medley final on Saturday.

Yesterday, Le Clos, the world champion in this distance in the 25m short-course pool, missed out on a spot in the A-final.

He was only ninth-fastest in the 200m freestyle heats, with his teammate Myles Brown eighth.

Veteran German Paul Biedermann won the final in 1min 46.72sec, with Brown touching second in 1:48.45, ahead of Lochte who was third in 1:49.17.

Le Clos won the B-final by a margin of more than three seconds and, ironically, his 1:48.43 would have been good enough for second spot in the main race.