Easy does it. That’s the mantra Olympic stars Cameron van der Burgh and Chad Le Clos employed in the heats on the third day of the SA championships in Durban on Wednesday morning.
And they were still the fastest in their events.
Van der Burgh‚ who won the 100m breaststroke crown the night before‚ went 28.28sec in the 50m breaststroke‚ a non-Olympic event in which he has medalled at all five world championships since his breakout year in 2007.
Le Clos floated to 2min 05.63sec in the 200m butterfly‚ with Myles Brown third-fastest in 2:06.04.
Le Clos and Brown go head-to-head for the 200m freestyle title on Wednesday night before competing in the 200m fly semifinals later in the evening programme.
To appreciate just how slow the times by Van der Burgh and Le Clos were‚ consider this: Van der Burgh’s personal best is 26.62 and Le Clos’s is 1:52.96.
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Both were also well short of the world championship A-qualifying times stipulated by Fina‚ swimming’s world governing body.
The gala doubles as trials for the world championships in Budapest in July.
Van der Burgh was inside the lesser 28.47 B-qualifying time‚ but Le Clos was well short of even that mark‚ which stands at 2:01.38.
Both have been training under Italian coach Andrea Di Nino since early this year and it seems he has instilled in them a philosophy of not wasting energy unnecessarily.
Their required A-qualifying marks are 27.51 and 1:57.28‚ which they should manage easily in their finals on Thursday night‚ if not in Wednesday night’s semifinals.
Swimming SA‚ however‚ doesn’t recognise non-Olympic events — also including the 50m butterfly and backstroke‚ as well as men’s 800m freestyle and women’s 1500m freestyle.
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The federation will not select swimmers for the world championships if they qualify in only in a non-Olympic event.
Van der Burgh‚ however‚ has already booked his spot in the 100m breaststroke‚ the first of three swimmers who also include Le Clos and Brown.
SSA’s thinking is they want SA’s swimmers to be competitive at the Olympics and avoid the situation they had in 2007 when SA won three world championship medals‚ including two golds‚ but all in non-Olympic races.
They won no medals at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
- TMG Digital/TMG Sport
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