Three swimmers used the final evening of the Telkom South African National Championships to collect their fourth titles of the competition in Durban on Sunday.
After the evening’s proceeding, Gerhard Zandberg, Melissa Corfe and Suzaan van Biljon were named as the swimmers of the competition.
Zandberg, who already had the 50m backstroke and 50m and 100m freestyle golds, added the 100m backstroke to his collection, winning in a time of 56,68, from Garth Tune (57,94) and Chris King (57,99).
”My body is sore,” he complained afterwards. ”It’s been a tough season already, but I’m enjoying it — it’s great. I’m just going to take a three-day break and then it’s straight back in again.”
”I want to try and race as much as possible internationally,” added the Pretoria swimmer who was part of the gold-medal winning quartet at last month’s Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
Corfe bagged the women’s 100m backstroke title, adding it to the 200m backstroke and 200m and 400m freestyle golds. She staved off a challenge from up-and-coming Pretoria swimmer Karin Prinsloo, winning in a time of 1:04,49. Prinsloo was second in 1:04,91.
Van Biljon, meanwhile, won the 50m breaststroke to complete her clean-sweep of the breaststroke events (having also won the 200m individual medley on Saturday).
”I’m even more tired now,” gasped the World Short Course silver medallist after winning the race in 32,77. ”I just swam to win tonight and wasn’t too worried about the time.”
Van Biljon’s roommate at Tuks, Bianca Meyer, provided Western Province’s Jessica Pengelly with a tough challenge in the 400m individual medley on Sunday, but it was Pengelly who emerged victorious, winning in a time of 4:52,52. Meyer was second in 4:53,32, and 800m and 1 500m freestyle national champion Wendy Trott third in 4:55,41.
Meanwhile, the country’s veteran swimmers showed they still have what it takes to beat their up-and-coming rivals. Mandy Loots claimed victory in the 50m butterfly in 27,89 while Olympic silver medallist Terence Parkin (who missed out on the chance to bag his 10th 200m breaststroke title here because of emergency dental treatment) bagged the 400m individual medley gold, in 4:28,80.
Fifteen-year-old Jay-Cee Thomson was second in 4;29,47, with 16-year-old Riaan Schoeman third in 4:30,01.
”That’s exactly the time we were going for,” explained Parkin’s coach, Wayne Ridden. ”He’s not fit enough to go faster than that because he’s busy with other things at the moment, but we knew that time would win it.”
Meanwhile, just relieved to have her 100m freestyle title back was Lauren Roets who had a disastrous race at last year’s nationals when a botched start saw her swimming into the false start rope, cutting her mouth and then having to swim the race a few minutes later.
”At least I managed to get my title back after the disaster last year,” said a relieved Roets afterwards. ”I wasn’t too worried about the time. All I wanted to do was win.
”It’s been a long two months of competition, so I’m looking forward to a bit of a break. But there’s not too much time so it’ll just be about a week or two.”
Another swimmer who will need a bit of a break is Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Troyden Prinsloo. He blitzed his way to victory in the 1 500m freestyle (his third gold of the meet), finishing more than 50m in front of the rest of the field in a time of 15:12,12.
Finishing in sixth place in that race was 15-year-old Chad Ho, who swam a personal best time of 16:04,13, having already taken the open-water 5km title at Hazelmere Dam in another personal best time of 59:00 earlier in the day.
Western Province’s Yolandi van der Merwe took the women’s 5km title in 1:02,07. — Sapa