Top swimming pair dominate Nelspruit meet

Erin Gallagher and Ayrton Sweeney produced a thrilling final day to the Nelspruit leg of the SA Grand Prix Invitational Swimming Meet on Sunday.

Gallagher, 20, added three gold medals to her tally, in the 50m and 200m freestyle and the 100m butterfly.

In the 50m freestyle, she clocked a fast 25.97 to Inge Weidemann’s 27.46 and Amica de Jager’s 27.79, while in the 200m freestyle she finished in 2:04.44 ahead of Rebecca Meder in 2:04.53 and Dune Coetzee in 2:04.65.

The 100m butterfly saw Gallagher win in 1:01.32, followed by Coetzee in 1:02.79 and Trinity Hearne in 1:03.80.

Coetzee went one better in the 800m freestyle, winning the event in 9:10.94 to Hannah Robertson’s 9:17.48 and Kristin Bellingan’s 9:36.31.

Meder won the 200m individual medley with a time of 2:19.83, ahead of Jessica Whelan in 2:24.29 and Hearne in 2:25.55.

Hanim Abrahams won the 100m breaststroke in 1:15.23 and Lindsay McLeod the 200m backstroke in 2:24.87.

Sweeney, 25, scooped two gold medals during the last day of the competition, in the 400m individual medley and the 200m breaststroke.

In the medley race, he was more than seven seconds ahead of the group, touching the wall in 4:29.58, ahead of Luca Holtzhausen in 4:37.83 and Jonathan Bennett in 4:45.94

In the 200m breaststroke, Sweeney won in 2:16.58 to Alaric Basson’s 2:18.43 and Bailey Musgrave’s 2:20.79.

In the 100m backstroke, Martin Binedell took the honours in 58.02, while the silver was shared between Pieter Coetze and Dylan Wright as they both touched in 1:00.05.

Binedell also grabbed the silver in the 100m freestyle in 52.08, ahead of Matthew Bosch in 52.35 and behind Douglas Erasmus in 51.43, while Wright won his second silver in the 400m freestyle in 4:12.17 to Calvin Coetzee’s golden time of 4:09.86 and Ethan de Preez’s bronze time of 4:13.42.

Du Preez won the 200m freestyle in 2:04.05, ahead of Tiago Cordeiro in 2:05.83 and Gavin Smith in 2:09.01.