Two more swimmers achieved World Championships qualifying marks on the second day of action at the SA National Swimming Championships in Gqeberha on Thursday to join Pieter Coetzé on the team to Singapore later this year.
Rebecca Meder was first up in the 200m medley, speeding to victory in a time of 2min 10.39sec to book a place at the global event later and also set a new national record.
Meder owned the previous record of 2:10.67, which she set at the Paris Olympics last year and was thrilled to lower the mark even further. “I’m very surprised with a 2:10.3. We thought at least the 2:11 low, maybe sneak in a 2:10 high, but to break my own SA record and to go a 2:10.3 is mind blowing, so I’m really happy with that,” she said.
Another surprise record came in the women’s 50m backstroke where Michaela de Villiers outgunned Jessica Thompson to the gold in a new national mark of 28.25sec.
“I am so happy about it. It’s very exciting, not something I expected so very, very happy,” said an elated De Villiers after claiming her first senior long course national title. “I don’t really train backstroke so it’s especially surprising because of that, but it feels really good. I think freestyle training actually kind of relates, so I’m very happy about it,” added the Louisiana-based star.
Meanwhile, the other swimmer to add his name to the list of qualifiers on Thursday was Matt Sates. The 21-year-old looked to be returning to his best form as he cruised to victory in the 200m individual medley in 1:58.83.
“It’s nice going close to my best times again,” said Sates. “A nice relief to do it, to qualify for Worlds is always nice, because it’s every swimmer’s goal to do it, and so it’s a privilege to go.”
Sates later added the 200m butterfly gold to his rapidly growing collection of titles at these championships, winning in 1:57.71.
The star of the opening night of action, Pieter Coetzé, achieved another two qualifying times – in the heats and the final of the 50m backstroke. His heat time of 24.56sec was the faster of the two, swimming 24.78 to take the win in the final. While happy with the performance, he admitted he’d like to have gone quicker.
“I think I’m happy to get the win and to qualify, but it would have been nice to go a bit faster tonight, especially because I went faster in the morning so you always want to cut down some time between the morning and the afternoon, but I’m happy with it,” he said.
With the recent news that all the individual 50m events will be included in the LA Olympic Games programme in 2028, Coetzé suggested he and his coach may re-examine what his main events could be going forward.
“When I was younger, sprinting was more my thing, and when I joined Rocco [Meiring] we did a bit more mileage so I became a bit more of a 200 swimmer,” he explained.
“It’s very tempting now to go back to sprint training and focus on maybe 50 free, and 50 and 100 back. I was just trying to get my mind off the news and focus on the task at hand first, and then after this week I’ll chat to my coach and maybe we’ll do a change,” he added.
Several more national Para-swimming records also fell on the second night of action, Naseerah du Toit bettering the SA mark she set in the morning heats of the S8 100m butterfly with a 1:47.38 in the final.
Christian Sadie was another swimmer in impressive form, swimming 28.72 in the S7 50m freestyle to better the national mark of 28.75 seconds he set at the Paralympics in Paris last year, while James Willers set a new SA S10 200m butterfly record of 2:43.51.
Photo: ROGER SEDRES/ SWIMMING SA
