Racing twice in 36 minutes was too much for Matthew Sates at the world championships in Doha on Wednesday night.
First Sates ended last in his 200m butterfly final, touching in 1 min 57.23 sec, then he touched last in his 200m individual medley semifinal in 2:01.21. He looked tired in both races.
On the plus side for South Africa, Tayla Jonker set a 28.37 sec national record in the 50m backstroke heats to advance to the semifinals, where she slowed slightly to 28.48. She missed out on a spot in Thursday’s final, but for her the job was already done.
Sates’s performances were well short of his best.
Had he repeated his 1:55.25 best in the 200m fly final he would have finished fourth.
It wasn’t a particularly quick race with Tomoru Honda of Japan winning in 1:53.88, ahead of Alberto Razzetti of Italy (1:54.65) and Austrian Martin Espernberger (1:55.16).
It’s been more than a decade since Honda’s time would have been fast enough to take a world championship gold, and that was in 2013 when Chad le Clos won in 1:54.32.
Before that you’d have to go back to 2005.
In the 200m IM, an event in which Sates made the final at Budapest 2022, he couldn’t even repeat the 2:00.28 he had clocked in the morning heats.
His best time in this race is 1:57.43, which would have ranked him first in the semifinals.
Le Clos failed to realise his dream of starring in the blue riband 100m freestyle, crashing out in the morning heats as he finished ninth in his heat in 49.04, well outside his 48.15 best from 2018.
Le Clos has basically ditched his premier 200m butterfly race, in which he won the 2012 Olympic gold as well as two world titles in 2013 and 2017, for the 100m freestyle and the 100m butterfly, which he swims later in the gala.
And the mixed medley relay team missed making the final by two places, finishing sixth in their heat in 3:48.03 to end 10th overall.
Pieter Coetzé opened the relay for South Africa but delivered his slowest 100m backstroke time of the gala to date, clocking 53.95.
Had he matched the 53.51 he swam in Tuesday’s final, the team would have advanced to the final where they could have focused on improving their time to try to secure a spot at the Paris Games.
Coetzé had gone 53.07 in the semifinals and 53.32 in the heats but, to be fair, he wasn’t the only one off his game.
Lara van Niekerk’s 1:07.23 was only two-hundredths faster than her effort in the semifinals a few nights earlier. In theory swimmers are supposed to enjoy an advantage of about half a second with the relay flying starts.
Erin Gallagher went 57.46 in the 100m butterfly leg, 0.13 quicker than her African record from earlier in the meet, and Clayton Jimmie’s 49.39 in the final freestyle leg was a good effort for someone with a 49.78 best from a standing dive.
On Thursday morning, Coetzé returns to action in the 200m backstroke, Gallagher in the women’s 100m freestyle and Matthew Randle in the 200m breaststroke.
Swimming
Double trouble for Matthew Sates as he fades at world swimming champs
Tayla Jonker set a 28.37 sec national record in the 50m backstroke heats
Image: David Balogh/Getty Images
Racing twice in 36 minutes was too much for Matthew Sates at the world championships in Doha on Wednesday night.
First Sates ended last in his 200m butterfly final, touching in 1 min 57.23 sec, then he touched last in his 200m individual medley semifinal in 2:01.21. He looked tired in both races.
On the plus side for South Africa, Tayla Jonker set a 28.37 sec national record in the 50m backstroke heats to advance to the semifinals, where she slowed slightly to 28.48. She missed out on a spot in Thursday’s final, but for her the job was already done.
Sates’s performances were well short of his best.
Had he repeated his 1:55.25 best in the 200m fly final he would have finished fourth.
It wasn’t a particularly quick race with Tomoru Honda of Japan winning in 1:53.88, ahead of Alberto Razzetti of Italy (1:54.65) and Austrian Martin Espernberger (1:55.16).
It’s been more than a decade since Honda’s time would have been fast enough to take a world championship gold, and that was in 2013 when Chad le Clos won in 1:54.32.
Before that you’d have to go back to 2005.
In the 200m IM, an event in which Sates made the final at Budapest 2022, he couldn’t even repeat the 2:00.28 he had clocked in the morning heats.
His best time in this race is 1:57.43, which would have ranked him first in the semifinals.
Le Clos failed to realise his dream of starring in the blue riband 100m freestyle, crashing out in the morning heats as he finished ninth in his heat in 49.04, well outside his 48.15 best from 2018.
Le Clos has basically ditched his premier 200m butterfly race, in which he won the 2012 Olympic gold as well as two world titles in 2013 and 2017, for the 100m freestyle and the 100m butterfly, which he swims later in the gala.
And the mixed medley relay team missed making the final by two places, finishing sixth in their heat in 3:48.03 to end 10th overall.
Pieter Coetzé opened the relay for South Africa but delivered his slowest 100m backstroke time of the gala to date, clocking 53.95.
Had he matched the 53.51 he swam in Tuesday’s final, the team would have advanced to the final where they could have focused on improving their time to try to secure a spot at the Paris Games.
Coetzé had gone 53.07 in the semifinals and 53.32 in the heats but, to be fair, he wasn’t the only one off his game.
Lara van Niekerk’s 1:07.23 was only two-hundredths faster than her effort in the semifinals a few nights earlier. In theory swimmers are supposed to enjoy an advantage of about half a second with the relay flying starts.
Erin Gallagher went 57.46 in the 100m butterfly leg, 0.13 quicker than her African record from earlier in the meet, and Clayton Jimmie’s 49.39 in the final freestyle leg was a good effort for someone with a 49.78 best from a standing dive.
On Thursday morning, Coetzé returns to action in the 200m backstroke, Gallagher in the women’s 100m freestyle and Matthew Randle in the 200m breaststroke.
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