2025 SOUTH AFRICAN SENIOR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, April 9th – Sunday, April 13th
- Newton Park Swimming Pool, Gqeberha, South Africa
- LCM (50m)
- Psych Sheet
The 2025 South African Senior National Championships begin on Wednesday, April 9th and for the first time in twenty years, Olympic champion Chad le Clos will not be competing.
The 32-year-old multi-Olympic medalist is taking a break from competition, focusing on nursing a nagging back injury. In February le Clos stated his intention to return to racing with this year’s World Aquatics’ Swimming World Cup.
For those who are diving in for the five-day affair, the meet brings about the sole qualifying opportunity for swimmers to add their names to the nation’s roster for this summer’s World Championships.
20-year-old University of Pretoria student Pieter Coetze is expected to race, building on the momentum he’s been carrying since finaling at last year’s Olympic Games.
“This year has been very interesting. I started studying so it’s pretty new to me, having to manage my time a bit more outside of the pool,” Coetze said.
“But I’ve kept up my training and the standard’s quite high, so I’m in good shape and I’m excited to qualify for a few events for the World Championships.”
Coetze is entered in the 50m/100m/200m backstroke along with the 50m/100m freestyle. That means he’ll be pitted against teammate Ruard van Renen who also competes for the University of Georgia in the NCAA.
21-year-old van Renen said of his preparation, “Training has been better than ever, I’ve just finished with a great collegiate year going a bunch of PBs and All-American titles, so confidence heading into nationals is at an all-time high.
“Even though it’s a different pool, I know the work that me and Neil [Versfeld] have put in will show.”
On the women’s side, Rebecca Meder is slated to put her talents on display, taking on the 200m free, 100m/200m breast, 200m IM and 100m fly events.
“I have been doing lots of racing in New Zealand in preparation for Nationals and my times have been looking really strong and pretty solid in training, which has been quite positive,” said Meder.
“Compared to last year, there’s not really much comparison… This year is a very different set-up. I’m looking forward to actually racing at Nationals… The world is swimming fast at the moment, so I think us South Africans are having to hop on that fast train and see how fast we can go too.”
As he did during last year’s South African Short Course Championships, Matt Sates is entered in a massive schedule of 10 events. We’ll see if he stays true to that packed portfolio as the meet carries on.
Key Entrants
Aimee Canny
Pieter Coetze
Dune Coetzee
Kaylene Corbett
Erin Gallagher
Michael Houlie
Rebecca Meder
Kris Mihaylov
Matthew Randle
Ruard van Renen
Quotes courtesy of Swimming South Africa.
Where is Sates training? Why didn’t Coetze go to Cal? Any chance he will go to Cal?
He is training with Noe ponti now
I hope Sates can focus on a selected few of his best events. He’s not an age grouper any more. He has to figure out what his best events are if he wants to do some serious things at international stage.
Idk why sates doesn’t just focus on 200Fr/IM
The mysterious man emerges again…
Might as well enter in all 17 events at this point
Giga tier bust. Oh well he should have been Marchands IM rival
Forgot about this dude.. he was on fire in 2022
why does sates always enter in 1573608 events at SA nationals lol