South African swimmers going with the current

IT MAY still be early days but South Africa’s swimmers knocking on the door for 2016 Rio Olympic Games qualification are emerging ahead of the crucial National Aquatic Championships and Olympic Trials in Durban in April.

The weekend’s first leg of the SA Swimming Grand Prix series in Nelspruit was the first opportunity to gauge what form the country’s swimmers were in.

True to form Olympic gold medallist Chad le Clos laid down an early marker in the men’s 100m butterfly when he blasted to a qualifying time of 51.82 seconds well ahead of schedule.

The time did not mean his seat for Rio was guaranteed as swimmers were required to meet the standards at the national championships but it did indicate how fast he is this early in the season while still in hard training.

National swimming coach, and Le Clos’ mentor, Graham Hill said the time would hold them in good stead for the rest of the season.

“It doesn’t really get it out of the way but it puts us in a position where we can do that anytime,” Hill said.

“We are in a comfortable position to maybe not even shave at trials and all that and put us in a good position for training leading up to the Olympics.”

Hill said they have been putting in the hard work to give Le Clos the best possible chance of defending his 200m butterfly Olympic title while adding the 100m butterfly gold.

Le Clos continued his superb form in the 100m freestyle clocking 49.22 seconds which is 0.23sec off the Olympic qualifying time.

With only a few minutes separating the 100m freestyle semi-final and the 200m butterfly final at the Games it could be difficult for Le Clos to swim both in Rio but Hill said they would keep their options open.

“The 100m free doesn’t sit in a good position for us, it comes right there with the 200m fly and we would like to swim it but we aren’t ruling it out,” Hill said.

“It will all depend on the shape he is but I believe he can back it up although it is a tight one to back up with only 10 or 12 minutes between the 100m free semi-final and the 200m fly final.”

Le Clos posted the sixth fastest time in the 100m freestyle in 2015 with the 48.16 seconds at the Moscow leg of the Fina World Cup.

Myles Brown seems to have regained some of his form and fell just short of the qualifying mark in the 200m freestyle.

He won the event over the weekend with a time of 1:49.23 which was little over a second short of the Olympic qualifying time of 1:47.97.

Hill was feeling bullish about the emerging talent with teenage girls Nathania van Niekerk, Tatjana Schoenmaker, and Rebecca Meder putting their hands up.

The 16- year- old Van Niekerk won four gold medals in total over the weekend – 50m, 100m, 200m backstroke and 100m freestyle – while she believed she was ahead of schedule for qualifying for Rio in the 200m backstroke with her time of 2:16.33.

Schoenmaker dominated the women’s breaststroke winning the 50m, 100m and 200m titles while she is less than three seconds from qualifying for the 100m breaststroke and less than four seconds in the longer distance.

The 13-year-old Meder won the women’s 200m individual medley in a time of 2:24.62 while she also won bronze in the 400m IM, 400m freestyle and silver in the 200m freestyle.

Hill was also impressed by Youth Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Brendan Levy, who posted a time of 2:02.83 in the men’s 200m butterfly.

“To swim 2:02 in hard work I reckon for a young guy like him going below two minutes at nationals will be a big thing and good for the future,” he said.

“Josh Dannhauser’s 1 500m was also really good with his time of 15:33, I wasn’t expecting that at all, he had a really good KZN championships where he swam 15:24 and Matt Meyer who didn’t swim tonight but boasts with a 15:20.

“I think with those two pushing each other at trials it will be very close I think we will have a Myles Brown scenario like in 2012 where they can get very close to qualifying we just hope they can go one further.”