Suzaan van Biljon has once again given selectors something to think about after qualifying for the World Championships for the third time at the Telkom National Swimming Championships in East London on Wednesday night.
The 16-year-old claimed a comfortable victory in her 200m breaststroke semifinal in a time of 2:29,44, two seconds within the qualifying time for the World Championships, which take place in Montreal in July.
Van Biljon, who failed to even reach the podium at last year’s national championships, has already swum the qualifying time twice in the 100m breaststroke, and remains the only swimmer to have achieved this feat at the competition so far.
Another teenager, Jean Basson, had the crowd on the edge of their seats after he pipped Olympic gold medallists Darian Townsend to the gold medal in the 200m freestyle final.
Basson swam 1:50,97 for his victory, with Townsend finished second in 1:51,21.
”I went through the first 100m just swimming my own race and not really looking at Darian,” Basson explained afterwards. ”But by the 150m mark, I saw that I turned just behind him, and in the fourth length I saw that I was catching him, and so I just pushed really hard until the end.”
The only other individual final of the evening saw Monday night’s 400m freestyle winner, Wendy Trott, topping the podium once again. Trott finished in 8:51,02 to take the gold ahead of multiple Paralympic medallist Natalie du Toit, who was second in 9:05,43.
Earlier in the day, Du Toit shattered her own world record in the 100m butterfly, swimming 1:07,27 in the morning heats.
That was the Cape Town swimmer’s second world mark, having sliced four seconds off her 400m freestyle record while on her way to a silver medal on Monday.
Meanwhile, it was the KwaZulu-Natal team of Kenneth Smith, Terence Parkin, Robin Francis and Townsend that took top honours in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay on Wednesday night, winning in a time of 7:46,03.
Thursday will see South Africa’s Olympic heroes, Roland Schoeman, Ryk Neethling and Townsend, back in action as they battle it out in the 100m freestyle. — Sapa