Roland Schoeman continued his hot streak on Wednesday, the final night of the Telkom national swimming championships, with a 23,61 seconds African record in the 50m butterfly, while Gerhard Zandberg shone with a South African 100m backstroke record that confirmed his ticket to the Athens Olympics in August.
The low point of the championships was that no women qualified for the Olympics for the first time since South Africa returned to the international field at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
The prospective Olympic team is extremely thin, with only Schoeman, Ryk Neethling, Lyndon Ferns, Eugene Botes, Terence Parkin, Darian Townsend and Gerhard Zandberg having made Olympic qualifiers.
Schoeman, despite being on antibiotics to fight a sinus attack, was the high point of the championships in Durban this week after he set the world’s fastest 100m freestyle this year and an African record in 48,20 seconds on Tuesday. He went on to swim an African, South African and Commonwealth record 21,98 seconds in the first leg of the 4x50m freestyle relay.
Schoeman, who qualified for the Athens Olympics in the 50m freestyle on Saturday, also broke the South African 100m butterfly record with 52,73 seconds in winning his semifinal, but he opted out of the final.
Zandberg confirmed his Olympic qualifier when he set an African record in a carbon-copy time of 55,44 seconds from his semifinal win for the men’s 100m backstroke.
”I’m really thrilled,” said Zandberg (20). ”The wheels came off a bit when I lost a touch of rhythm at the turn to go faster, but this will be my first Olympics if I make the team and that’s great for me.”
There was hope that Charlene Wittstock would be the solo woman from the championships to qualify for the Olympics in the 100m backstroke, but she just missed the 1:02,42 mark with her 1:03,17 victory.
”It’s been tough going for the women here,” said Wittstock of the fact that no women made the Olympic cut. ”We need better incentives. We haven’t had the kind of competition the men have had overseas. We’re competing against one another and the pressure has caused incredible tension.
”I’ve been so tight in these champs. I should never have been tired in the last 30m, but I was because of the stress. We can still get a lot faster before the Olympics, so if they don’t make concessions for us, then so be it, I’ve missed the boat.”
Parkin was way ahead of the field in retaining his 400m individual medley title in 4:23,26 — way off his South African record of 4:16,92. Kathryn Meaklim came from behind to pip Tamaryn laubscher for the women’s title in 4:58,34, almost 10 seconds off Mandy Lott’s South African record.
George du Rand of the Free State requested a 200m backstroke time trial during Wednesday’s morning heats and set a South African record 2:02,56, but it was not good enough to book his ticket to Athens.
Earlier in the week, Neethling, who qualified for Athens by winning the 200m freestyle in 1:47,37, was the silver medallist in the 100m freestyle, which got him an Athens qualifier.
Townsend also swam an Olympic qualifier 1:49,57 in the 200m freestyle semis, squeezing through by 0,3 seconds. — Sapa