Day three finals of 2011 Telkom South Africa National Championship - Men’s events
The 2011 Telkom South Africa National Championship continued on the third day at the Newton Park Pool, Port Elizabeth. The championship serves as a dual platform, providing a chance to South African swimmers to defend their national titles and also proving
their qualification into the national team to compete at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai.
The session included the events of 200m back-stroke, 100m freestyle, 50m butterfly and the 100m breast-stroke in the Men’s category.
The session initiated with the Men’s 200m backstroke final, where the defending champion, George Du Rand, clocked a wonderful timing of 1:59.99 minutes. Du Rand clocked a time four seconds above his personal best time of 1:55.75 minutes at the same Championships
in 2009, but his time was comfortably under the FINA B-Time Qualification Standard and placed him ahead of his following swimmers Darren Murray and Charl Crous. Murray won the silver medal in a time of 2:01.11 minutes and was slightly ahead of the KZNA-KZ’s
Crous, who clocked 2:01.43 minutes for the bronze medal.
Next was the Men’s 100m freestyle semi-final, where the top two finishers proved their fastest qualification into the finals, clocking a time under the FINA A-Time Qualification Standard. Graeme Moore of CGA-CG earned the fastest qualification into the finals
clocking a time of 48.80 seconds, ahead of the NTS-NT’s Gideon Louw, who touched the wall in 49.02 seconds. Both swimmers will have to replicate their performance in the final, in order to confirm their spots in the South African team to Shanghai. KZNA-KZ’s
Darian Townsend followed them into the final as the third fastest swimmer, clocking a time of 49.29 seconds ahead of NTS-NT’s Roland Schoeman, who reported in 49.66 seconds.
The next event of the session was the Men’s 50m butterfly, where NTS-NT’s Roland Schoeman confirmed his berth for China by earning the gold medal in a FINA A-Time Qualification Standard. Schoeman won the title in a time of 23.47 seconds that was comfortably
under the FINA time criteria of 23.73 seconds. He was followed by CGA-CG’s Graeme Moore and Neil Watson, who touched the wall for the silver and bronze medal in a time of 24.15 and 24.30 seconds, respectively.
Cameron Van der Burgh of NTS-NT claimed the title in the Men’s 100m breast-stroke in a FINA qualified time of 1:00.29 minutes. His time was comfortably under the FINA time criteria of 1:01.57 minutes. He was followed by his team-mate Giulio Zorzi and KZNA-KZ’s
Rory L Buck, who touched the wall second and third in 1:03.09 and 1:03.11 minutes, respectively.
The championship will continue for three more days to finalise the South African National Swimming team for the Shanghai Championships.
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