Fina and Olympic qualifiers at open water swimming champs

The SA National Open Water Swimming Championships ended at Marina Martinique in Jeffreys Bay on Sunday with Leigh McMorran winning gold in the 5km event — having already claimed podium finishes on Saturday.

McMorran, 15, added the 5km to her list of Fina World Junior OWS Championships qualifiers by scooping gold in 01:02:40 ahead of Samantha Randle, 21, in 01:03:02 and Catherine van Rensburg, 15, in 1:03:10.

Besides McMorran and Van Rensburg, Mykae Forrest also made the 13-16 Fina Qualification list in eighth place in 1:05:51.78, while the 17-18 age group qualifications went to Tory Earle in fifth in 1:03:21.24, Carli Antonopoulos in sixth in 1:03:59.98 and Stephanie Houtman in seventh in 1:05:19.88.

The men’s 5km race saw KwaZulu-Natal’s Chris McGlynn take gold in 57:45.63, while silver and bronze were claimed by Byron Kimber in 57:49.47 and Namibia’s Phillip Seidler in 57:52.15.

The Fina World Junior Open Water Swimming Championships qualifiers in the 5km race were silver medallist Kimber, as well as Bernard Wolfaardt, 17, who finished fifth in 1:00:24.32 and Aiden Petersen, 18, in eighth in 1:00:32.62.

In the 13-16 age group, it was Flippie van der Spuy, Connor Albertyn and Kyle White who added their names to the list in 58:56.81, 1:00:35.98 and 1:01:28.56 respectively.

The final team for the Tokyo Olympic Games will be selected by Sascoc, while the Fina World Junior Open Water Swimming Championships team selection will be done by Swimming SA. —