Chad Le Clos to compete alongside SA youth brigade at world champs

Chad Le Clos will spearhead a mostly young squad at the world short-course championships in Melbourne in December. 

The 30-year-old has made the podium at the last six straight editions of this event from 2010 to 2021, amassing 18 career medals from the competition. 

South Africa’s promising youth brigade of Lara van Niekerk, Pieter Coetzé and Matthew Sates will be looking to scoop their first. 

Van Niekerk took bronze in the women’s 50m breaststroke at the long-course world championships in Budapest in June before taking the 50m-100m double at the Commonwealth Games. Both those galas were in Olympic-sized 50m pools. 

Coetzé won the 100m backstroke at Birmingham 2022 while finishing second in the 50m and third in the 200m. At the world junior championships he won the 200m backstroke and finished second in the other two races. 

Sates, the top male swimmer of the 2021 World Cup short-course series, was unable to get to the world short-course championships in Abu Dhabi last year because of Covid-19 travel restrictions. 

Breaststroker Michael Houlie will also be looking to add to his successes from the 2019 Universiade and 2018 Youth Olympics. 

Short-course competition over 25m laps requires quick turns and good underwater work.

The selection for the competition, which runs from December 13 to 18, sees the return of head coach Graham Hill after an absence of two years.

Hill is credited as the man who proved South African swimmers could train at home and beat the world, having mentored Terence Parkin and Le Clos to the Olympic podium. 

He also played an important role in helping Rocco Meiring coach Tatjana Schoenmaker to Olympic success. She chose to not race in this event.

Team 

Men:  Clayton Jimmie, Matthew Sates, Pieter Coetzé, Chad Le Clos, Michael Houlie, Brenden Crawford, Kian Keylock. 

Women: Lara van Niekerk, Hannah Pearse, Stephanie Houtman, Rebecca Meder, Dakota Tucker, Caitlyn de Lange.

Manager: Julie Cassim.

Head coach: Graham Hill.

Coaches: Eugene da Ponte, Wayne Riddin.