2025 SOUTH AFRICAN SC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, September 25th – Sunday, September 28th
- Prelims at 8:30am local (2:30am ET)/Finals at 5:00pm (11am ET)
- GC Jolliffe Swimming Pool, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
- SCM (25m)
- Psych Sheet
The 2025 South African Short Course Championships kick off tomorrow, Thursday, September 25th and a familiar face is among the entrants.
33-year-old Olympic champion Chad le Clos is scheduled to make his 2025 racing debut after sitting out the entire year thus far, tending to a nagging back injury.
Preparing for the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup stop in Carmel, Indiana, le Clos is entered in the 50m/100m free, 50m/100m fly and 50m back events over the course of the domestic Championships in Pietermaritzburg.
On his current status, le Clos states, “My back is feeling good… feeling great. I’m going to be heading to the World Cup afterwards, probably just swimming one leg, we’ll see how we go.
“I raced a couple of weeks ago in Cape Town… So we’ll see if we can build on that and then build for a big Commonwealth next year, big trials next year. By then we’ll have a good squad up and running and it’s going to be very exciting, I can’t wait.”
Although 21-year-old world champion Pieter Coetze is missing from this week’s competition, le Clos will be joined by the likes of Jessica Thompson, Lara van Niekerk and newly minted World Junior Championships gold medalist Kris Mihaylov.
For 18-year-old Thompson, the SA short course championships are the most exciting of the national events, thanks to the added turns and underwater skills required.
“It’s just it’s so much more exciting because anyone can pull anything out of the bag,” she said. “You want to swim as many national competitions as possible and just get the experience you need and keep working on your skills, keep refining them and seeing what you need to fix.”
Quotes courtesy of Swimming South Africa.
