Lythe Pillay stormed to the 400m gold at the World Student Games in Germany on Wednesday night as birthday girl Olivia Nel claimed her fourth medal in the pool to become South Africa’s most prolific medallist of the showpiece.
Pillay, the 2022 under-20 world champion, ran a superbly controlled race to dominate the one-lap race and win comfortably in a 44.84 sec season’s best, more than half a second in front of Hungarian runner-up Patrik Enyingi.
The 22-year-old’s time, the fifth-fastest of his career, also counted as an automatic qualifier for the world championships in Tokyo in September and was his fastest performance since the 44.58 he ran at the Herculis Diamond League in Monaco in July last year.
Pillay’s victory was South Africa’s fourth gold of the Games that are being staged mostly in the Rhine-Ruhr region.
In Berlin Nel claimed her fourth medal on the final day of the swimming gala, delivering a strong finish to touch third in the women’s 50m freestyle.
US-based student Nel, the daughter of former Cape Town swimming star Annette Cowley, was well off the pace midway through the race, but she powered over the second half to sneak onto the podium in a 24.82 personal best, just two-hundredths of a second in front of Italian Viola Scotto Di Carlo.
The first two places were taken by the American duo of Maxine Parker (24.54) and Julia Dennis (24.58).
Nel, who also took bronze in the women’s 50m backstroke as well as two relay races, celebrated her 23rd birthday with twin Georgia, who shared one of the relay gongs.
Nel’s time on Wednesday night was also inside the 24.86 automatic standard for the world aquatics championships under way in Singapore, but it came too late with the qualifying window having ended on June 29.
The swimming section of the championships begin on Sunday with Pieter Coetzé, who won two gold medals in the 100m and 50m backstroke in Berlin, set to play a starring role.
Team South Africa was lying eighth on the Universiade medals table on Wednesday night with four gold, two silver and six bronze.
The Games finish on Sunday.
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