South African swim stars Cameron van der Burgh and Gerhard Zandberg joined Shaun Harris and Lize Mari Retief in a morning of fast times at the Fina World Short-Course Championships in Manchester on Saturday. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry broke her third world record of the week.
Gerhard Zandberg kept South Africa’s fast-lane medal hunt on course with his 50m backstroke heats effort, coupled with fine performances by Melissa Corfe, Suzaan van Biljon and William Diering, at the Fina World Short-Course Swimming Championships in Manchester on Friday.
It took less than a week for South African swimmers to appreciate how tough international competition will be at the Olympics in August. Last Sunday Swimming South Africa announced a record 21 swimmers had posted Olympic qualifying times. But by Wednesday many of these stars had bombed out of the World Short-Course Championships in Manchester.
Gerhard Zandberg’s African record-breaking performance in the 100m backstroke, plus speedy times set by Cameron van der Burgh and Jessica Pengelly, gave the South African team much to cheer about on the opening morning of the Fina World Short-Course Swimming Championships on Thursday.
Gerhard Zandberg’s South African swimming contingent was caught up in the chaos at Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow airport in London, which caused the swimmers to miss their connection flight to Manchester. The terminal opened recently only to descend into disorder as its baggage-handling system broke down.
Someone neglected to remind the participants at the South African National Aquatic Championship in Durban about the oft-repeated truism that the whole sports thing is more about taking part and less about winning. Perhaps even if someone had, the swimmers would not have been too bothered to listen.
No image available
/ 23 February 2008
Western Province teenage swimming sensation Jessica Pengelly battled to contain her surprise after smashing her national 400m individual medley record in front of a vocal crowd at the Samsung Swimming Grand Prix series at the University of the Western Cape on Saturday.
No image available
/ 6 February 2008
Swimming South Africa announced on Wednesday a full-strength line up for the Fina World Short-Course Championships in Manchester, United Kingdom, from April 9 to 13. President Jace Naidoo and national coach Dirk Lange said it is the strongest South African short-course squad selected to date.