Reward for chasing the elusive butterfly

Chad le Clos seldom expects to lose these days, but when he does, he still hates doing so.

At the national championships in April this year, he went for an unprecedented eight titles, but fell short in the one race he couldn't win - the 50m butterfly.

As good as Le Clos is, he was up against Roland Schoeman, one of the greatest swimming sprinters this country has ever produced, if not the greatest.

Until manufacturers introduced those fast suits that saw a flurry of world records in 2008, Schoeman had swum the second-fastest 50m freestyle of all time.

His 21.69sec was slower only than Alexander Popov's 21.64 world record.

The Russian's mark had stood for eight years, and then in early 2008 it got broken four times in 41 days. It's been broken twice more since then, and has sat at 20.91 since December 2009, shortly before the suits were banned.

Schoeman clocked his 21.69 at the 2005 world championships, where he made swimming history in the 50m butterfly which, unfortunately for him, is not an Olympic event.

In 2005 Schoeman became the first man on the planet to break the 23sec barrier in the race he owned again at the 2007 Fina World Championships.

Even seven years later, he was still clocking some of the fastest times in the world.

Le Clos didn't stand a chance and he knew that, admitting as much during the gala.

But he kept trying.

On the night Schoeman was too good, beating Le Clos by more than half a second.

Le Clos had seemed to take his defeat well. So, at an informal press conference later that evening, I took the liberty of teasing him. Feigning surprise that he was beaten, I told him: "Jeez, you got thumped, hey."

The swimmer, always polite, smiled in reply, but it turned out he hadn't picked up my attempt at humour.

The next morning dad Bert came over to the press seats and berated me, telling me I should know it's impossible for a swimmer to excel at endurance and sprinting.

Bert lightened up a little after I explained to him that I had only been joking.

But this past week Bert's son performed that particular "impossible" and won the 50m, 100m and 200m crowns at the world short-course championships in Doha.

That's the thing about Le Clos - once he puts his mind to something, he goes for it until he gets it.

At the 2012 Olympic trials somebody made the mistake of telling him he wasn't one of the fastest four 200m freestylers in the country.

So Le Clos entered the individual race and posted the fastest time of the gala, and he went on to anchor the relay team at the Olympics.

In Qatar he won the 200m freestyle world title.

Of course, there's a big difference between short-course competition, in a 25m pool, and traditional galas in Olympic-sized 50m laps.

The short version suits Le Clos because of his tremendous turns and incredible underwater work off the wall.

Le Clos's real challenge is going to be at long-course events.

He has yet to beat Schoeman in the 50m butterfly in this format, but he closed the gap at the Commonwealth Games to 0.23sec in the final and 0.04 in the semifinals.

Le Clos, also the reigning 100m and 200m long-course world champion, is going to have a tough time if he tries to repeat his triple crown at the long-course world champs next year.

But is it an impossible task? I wouldn't bet against him.