Roland reclaims 100m free title

Four more swimmers swam qualifying times for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October in the fourth session of finals at the SA Swimming Senior National Championships in Durban on Thursday night bringing the total to eight.

First one up was Chanelle van Wyk of Northern Tigers in the semi-finals of the women’s 50m backstroke with a swim of 29.05 which just scraped under the 20.07 requirement.

Van Wyk’s Northern Tigers teammate, Karin Prinsloo, was second fastest in 29.60 and she will be hoping that Van Wyk will pull them both under the 20.07 barrier in tonight’s final.

Disabled swimmer Natalie du Toit qualified in the 100m butterfly following her qualification in the 100m freestyle on Wednesday.

The crowd in the stands had to wait until almost the end of the programme before long distance swimmers, Riaan Schoeman (KZN) and Wendy Trott (WP), both made the QT in their respective events.

Schoeman swam a brilliant race to win the men’s 400m individual medley in 4:14.80, his personal best time without the use of a “fast suit”, to leap into second place in the world rankings behind Roberto Pavoni of Great Britain who has done a 4:14.55.

Chad le Clos (KZN), who qualified in Monday’s opening session in the 200m butterfly, was second in 4:19.14 and Jonathan Hill (CG) third in 4:28.50.

The session closed with Trott ploughing a lonely furrow of 16 lengths of the King’s Park Pool to improve on her heat time of 8:29.76 in the women’s 800m freestyle, lowering it to 8:27.11 inj the final to eclipse the QT of 8:35.98.

Du Toit was a determined second in 8:59.09 and Rene Warnes (KZN) third in 8:59.51.

The showpiece of the evening, the men’s 100m freestyle, lived up to expectations and was fiercely contested from start to finish despite the absence of the injured title holder, Lyndon Ferns (NT).

Gideon Louw (NT) did not get the best of starts and was slow off the starting blocks as his Northern Tigers teammate, Olympian Roland Schoeman, powered down lane six to lead at the turn.

With the race virtually in his pocket, Schoeman continued to set the pace as Louw caught Graeme Moore (CG) at the halfway and overtook him on the home stretch.

Schoeman maintained his pace to grab first place in 49.51, a tenth-of-a-second in front of the fast finishing Louw (49.62) with Moore (49.99) third, Darian Townsend (50.09) closing in for fourth and the youngest finalist at 19, Leith Shankland (50.66), fifth.

The crowd was left in suspense as the scoreboard went on the blink at the crucial moment and had to wait agonizing minutes before the result was confirmed.

But they were left disappointed, as no doubt were the swimmers, with none of them achieving the Games’ qualifying time of 49.23, Schoeman a quarter-of-a-second off it - not to mention is personal best which sits in the lower range of 48s.

In men’s semi-final action, KZN’s Charl van Zyl was only 0.06 second outside the QT of 55.14 in his heat of the 100m backstroke with Darren Murray breathing down his neck second fastest in 55.01.

Van Zyl just missed out in qualifying for the 200m backstroke on Wednesday and is determined he will achieve his target in tonight’s 100m final.

Mandy Loots, the 32-year-old Central Gauteng master of all swim disciplines and who is enjoying her 18th appearance at the senior nationals, led the way home again in the final of the women’s 100m butterfly final.

Finishing strongly and over two seconds faster than second-placed Vanessa Mohr (NT), Loots won her first medal at 14 years of age, the year that Mohr was born! Although her winning time of 59.71 was 0.36 second outside the QT for the CG, she was the only one to break the one-minute barrier with Mohr second in 1:02.18 and KZN’s Bianca Meyer third in 1:02.68.

She was unfazed at not having achieved the QT, but said optimistically: “I’ve still got the 200m back and 200m fly ahead of me so I still have a lot to look forward to."