Le Clos Makes His Mark On 200 Butterfly On South Africa C’ships Day 4

2017 SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL AQUATIC CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Monday, April 3rd – Saturday, April 8th
• Kings Park Pool, Durban, South Africa
• LCM
• Event Schedule
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
• Live Results

After a big swim yesterday in the men’s 200m freestyle final, 2016 Olympic silver medalist Chad Le Clos cranked out another impressive swim tonight in the 200m butterfly. After carefully calculating his prelims and semi-final efforts in light of his other swims, Le Clos started out yesterday morning with a pedestrian time of 2:05.63, followed by a on-the-move 2:00.88 in last night’s session. Today, however, the 24-year-old turned up the heat to win the gold in a time of 1:55.00, the #2 time in the world so far this season.

Le Clos’ time tonight outperformed his 1:56.54 effort from earlier this year at the Grand Prix in Stellenbosch in February. In that race, Le Clos registered splits of 54.81 and 1:01.73. Compare that to tonight’s outing, where he took the first 100 out on 54.77, but managed to hold on much more efficiently and clock a closing 100 of 1:00.23 to score the 1:55.00 in Durban and collect his 3rd World Championships qualifying time this meet.

Matthew Meyer won the men’s 800m freestyle tonight and came gut-wrenchingly close to the FINA A cut with his final result. Meyer checked in with a winning time of 7:54.53, just .22 off of the Budapest qualifying time of 7:54.31. As a small consolation, Meyer now ranks as the 4th fastest time in the world in the event.

Zane Waddell, who swims for the University of Alabama stateside, took the top seed in tonight’s 100m freestyle semi-final. The 19-year-old clocked a time of 49.55 to represent the only swimmer under the 50-second threshold. He’ll attempt to achieve the FINA A cut of 48.93 during tomorrow night’s final.

Additional Winners on the Day:

• Cameron van der Burgh secured a 50m breaststroke World Championships qualifying time last night with his 27.06 in the semi, but he officially won the event tonight with a slightly slower 27.17.
• The women’s 50m breaststroke saw Tatjana Schoenmaker top the podium in a time of 31.61. She won the 100m breaststroke earlier and will tackle the 200m distance tomorrow, where she’ll try for her first FINA A cut.
• 14-year-old Dune Coetzee scored a swift 200m butterfly time of 2:16.27 to earn the top seed.
• Rebecca Meder took the women’s 200m freestyle in a winning time of 2:02.94.
• The women’s 200m backstroke semi-final saw Mariella Venter move into the pole position with her time of 2:13.52.
• Ayrton Sweeney won the men’s 200m IM event, touching in 2:01.69, outside of the 2:00.22 World Championships qualifying time.