KwaZulu-Natal swimmer Riaan Schoeman was the talk of the South African swimming squad after winning the 400m individual medley final in a new South African record time on Wednesday, the second day of the International Swim Meeting in Tokyo, Japan.
The 18-member South African squad are currently competing in Japan as part of their preparations for next year’s Beijing Olympics, and Schoeman in particular will have pleasant memories of his Asian swimming experience, having won the final in four minutes and 15,41 seconds. Poland’s Pawel Korzeniowski was next best in 4:17,06.
Schoeman’s time easily eclipsed the previous national mark of 4:16,92, which was set by Terence Parkin at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Keri Shaw clocked a personal best of 2:11,44 to qualify for the B final, while Shaun Harris posted a heats time of 50,39 seconds to book his place in the 100m freestyle final. However, he found the going tough against some of the world’s leading swimmers and took eighth place in the final in 50,27.
Commenting on the performances of the South African swimmers in Japan, Swimming SA’s general manager of athlete development, Rushdee Warley, said: ”The standard of competition is much higher than what we anticipated. It’s important for swimmers to use this experience as a learning experience as those who qualify for the Olympics inevitably have one chance at such an event and have to deliver at that exact moment.
”Racing and training opportunities such as these allow the swimmers to evaluate what works best for them in what could be a similar environment at the Olympic Games.” — Sapa