Sates, Jonker advance to semifinals while Le Clos, mixed relay miss out

Matthew Sates fought back on the final lap to finish second in his 200m individual medley heat at the world championships in Doha on Wednesday, advancing to the evening semifinals.

He had been lying fourth going into the final lap, but powered his way over the 50m of the freestyle leg to touch in 2min 00.28sec, ranking him 10th overall.

Sates faces a tough night, also competing in the 200m butterfly final, which will be staged less than 40 minutes before his semifinal.

Jeremy Desplanches of Switzerland, the bronze medallist at the Tokyo Olympics, was the fastest in the 200m IM in 1:58.17, just ahead of Japanese star Daiya Seto, the 2019 world champion, in 1:58.26.

Sates will probably need to get closer to his 1:57.43 best if he wants to get into Thursday’s final.

Tayla Jonker progressed to the 50m backstroke semifinals after finishing fourth in her heat in a 28.37sec South African record, which placed her 12th overall.

Chad le Clos failed to realise his dream of starring in the blue-riband 100m freestyle, crashing out in the heats as he finished ninth in his heat in 49.04, well outside his 48.15 best from 2018.

Le Clos has 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.

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 he 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 qualifying for 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 their 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.

The men’s and women’s medley relays will attempt to qualify on Sunday, the last day of the championships.