South African swimmers astonish in swimming events: South African LC Nationals – Part 1
The first day of the South African Long Course Nationals witnessed marvellous sprints of all national swimmers in their respective events. The championship is a seven-day event that took place at the KZN Aquatic-Kings Park Centre in Durban.
The first session of the event included 400m Individual Medley (IM), 100m butterfly, 400m freestyle and 100m breaststroke in Men and Women’s category.
The session started with the Men’s 400m IM final, where the 20-year-old Chad Le Clos devastated hopes of his opponents by snaring gold medal of the event.
Le Clos, who is the 200m butterfly world champion, went full throttle in the distant IM discipline and occupied gold medal of the discipline by submitting a time of 4 minutes and 13.86 seconds.
He was followed by Riaan H Schoeman, who stayed almost one and a half body length slower from his foregoing finisher and tapped the wall for silver medal by reporting a time of 4 minutes and 15.60 seconds.
Similarly, the 22-year-old Schoeman remained 0.82 seconds away from overpowering the silver medallist and touched the wall with the timing of 4 minutes and 16.42 seconds for bronze medal.
Subsequently, the 33-year-old Mandy T Loots smothered all struggles of her challengers by dominating the semi-finals of Women’s 100m butterfly.
Loots served notice of her talent by seizing the top qualification spot of the event with an effort of 59.44 seconds. Her stupendous effort remained 1.36 seconds ahead of Vanessa Mohr, who qualified as the second best swimmer by clocking a time of 1 minute
and 00.80 seconds.
Mohr’s scintillating effort was trailed by Marne Erasmus, who stayed 0.32 seconds behind slower from her former finisher and qualified into the playoff as third fastest swimmer with the timing of 1 minute and 01.12 seconds.
The third event of the session was Men’s 400m freestyle final, where Heerden Herman dictated terms to his opponents by clinching gold medal of the event with the timing of 3 minutes and 48.57 seconds.
The 21-year-old Herman was followed by Myles M Brown, who remained nearly three seconds behind and secured silver medal of the event with the timing of 3 minutes and 51.70 seconds.
The second position holder was trailed by Mark B Randall, who suffered a loss of almost two seconds from his preceding swimmer and hit the wall with the timing of 3 minutes and 53.29 seconds.
Following that, the crowd experienced exhausting efforts of Kathryn A Meaklim in the Women’s 400m IM playoff. The 22-year-old Meaklim displayed her ruthless aggression in the 400m discipline as she cruised her way towards the finishing wall for gold medal
by producing a time of 4 minutes and 37.70 seconds.
The champion was followed by Jessica E Pengelly, who remained almost 8.50 seconds behind and touched the finishing blockade for silver medal by posting an effort of 4 minutes and 46.47 seconds.
Pengelly was followed by Wendy A Trott, who secured bronze medal of the event by clocking a time of 4 minutes and 47.11 seconds.
The last event of the session was Men’s 100m breaststroke semi-finals, where Cameron van der Burgh finished first with an effort of 1 minute and 00.36 seconds.
He was followed by Neil R Versfeld and Rory L Buck, who qualified as second and third position holders with timings of 1:01.79 and 1:02.36 minutes, respectively.
To be continued in Part 2.
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