Chad storms through at Durban champs
CHAD le Clos delivered another world-class display to finish off the South African championships in Durban on Saturday night‚ suggesting there was cause for great expectations at the world championships later this year.
He was one of eight swimmers at the gala to achieve A-standard qualifying times for the international showpiece in Budapest in July.
They include three new faces in Zane Waddell‚ Brent Szurdoki and Tatjana Schoenmaker‚ who is likely to give the championships a miss to focus on the World Student Games.
Waddell was one of three swimmers to hit the A-qualifying time in 50m freestyle‚ but countries are allowed to enter only two swimmers per event.
Szurdoki‚ however‚ whose father was born in Hungary’s capital‚ produced a late surge to beat the 15min 12.79sec qualifying time and defending champion Matthew Meyer in the process.
Szurdoki‚ who missed qualifying for last year’s Olympics by 0.63sec‚ touched in 15.11.22‚ while Meyer‚ 19, the Rio Olympian‚ missed out by less than half a second‚ clocking 15:13.11.
Szurdoki achieved his hard-fought dream without his parents in attendance‚ as they could not afford to take time off work.
“Things have been difficult‚” Szurdoki‚ who started studying exercise science this year, said. “I didn’t know if I would be able to study. I got a bursary so that helped me out a lot.”
US-based student Waddell set impressive personal bests in both the 100m and 50m freestyle‚ sandwiching himself between Olympians Brad Tandy and Doug Erasmus for the silver medal in the shorter race on Saturday.
Rebecca Meder‚ the 14-year-old Cape Town schoolgirl‚ won five gold medals to establish herself as one to watch for the future. Her focus this year will be the age-group world championships and the Youth Commonwealth Games.
Le Clos was chuffed after his 51.29 world lead in the 100m butterfly.
“I was just happy to go a bit faster [than the semifinals]. That’s very exciting. Usually by this time at nationals I’m dying‚ so I think for me this is awesome‚” he said. A-qualifiers: Men: Chad le Clos (100m & 200m freestyle‚ 100m & 200m butterfly); Cameron van der Burgh (50m & 100m breaststroke); Myles Brown (200m freestyle); Brad Tandy‚ Doug Erasmus and Zane Waddell (all 50m freestyle); Brent Szurdoki (1 500m freestyle). Women: Tatjana Schoenmaker (200m breaststroke).