Some promising morning performances placed the South African team in a good position to add to their medal count at the Pan Pacific Championships in Victoria, Canada, on the final day of competition on Sunday.
Having already claimed bronze in the 100m freestyle, Roland Schoeman will be going all out in the 50m freestyle final where he will be joined by fellow Arizona-based teammate Lyndon Ferns.
Schoeman swam 22,16 seconds to win his heat and qualify second fastest for Sunday night’s final. Only American Cullen Jones (who was part of the United States quartet that eclipsed South Africa’s relay world record on Saturday) was quicker, also winning his heat, in 22,14 seconds.
”I’m happy with that. It’s a morning swim and that’s all it is,” said Schoeman afterwards. ”I am feeling so-so and slowly acclimatising and getting used to the time difference, so we’ll see what happens tonight.”
Ferns swam 22,65 seconds in the heats to book his place in the final (thanks to the rule that only allows two swimmers per country in a final), and Gerhard Zandberg will swim in the B final, having swum 23,03 seconds in the morning.
”I am quite happy with that,” said Ferns, who just missed out on a medal in the 100m butterfly on Saturday. ”But hopefully I can come back tonight and swim a best time.”
Suzaan van Biljon swam the quickest time in the heats of the 200m breaststroke. Having struggled to sleep over the past few days because of jet lag, Van Biljon looked more comfortable in the 200m event, reaching the wall in 2:27,76, but admitted afterwards: ”I wasn’t feeling great, although my stroke was a bit longer. I was really tired in the last 50m.
”I went all out this morning but I’m sure I can go a bit faster tonight,” she added.
Van Biljon’s Pretoria teammate William Diering and Neil Versveld will swim in the men’s 200m breaststroke final where they will come up against world-record holder Brendan Hansen of the US and Japan’s Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima.
”It’s going to be tough,” said Diering. ”I think that tonight the world record might be broken.”
Meanwhile, commenting on the American team of Michael Phelps, Neil Walker, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak breaking the 4x100m freestyle record — which previously belonged to South Africa — on Saturday night, Schoeman reckoned: ”It’s nice when a country has everything they do. We don’t have a quarter of what they have but still managed to get the record in Athens.
”Frankly, it’s about time they broke it. They have so many great swimmers to choose from and so to take two years to do it is a bit pathetic.
”It actually takes the pressure off us a bit and we are more motivated than ever. They have finally given us something to work towards.
”They may have done it at the Pan Pacs but they haven’t managed to do it at the last two Olympics,” he added referring to his, Ryk Neethling, Darian Townsend and Ferns’s win in Athens and the Australians’ victory in Sydney in 2000, both in world-record time. — Sapa