Fresh from her double gold exploits at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham for Team SA, teen starlet Lara van Niekerk set an SA and African record in the 50m breaststroke at the SA Short Course Championships in Pietermaritzburg last weekend. In the process, the swimmer earned qualification for the World Short Course Championships in Australia this December.
Van Niekerk has surprised herself in recent months with her record-breaking performances. After the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, she only had three weeks of training to right the wrongs. Having had to have her appendix removed after contracting acute appendicitis shortly after the World Championships in June and the Commonwealth Games trials, Van Niekerk also had to fight off a lung infection that threatened to derail her season.
However, the 19-year-old, based at the Pretoria Aquatic Club, saw the setbacks as an opportunity for a comeback. Armed with what she describes as the “the best support structure”, she worked with long-time coach Eugene da Ponte and mental coach Emile de Bruin to shape her body and mind.
She won a bronze medal at the World Championships, but few predicted her meteoric rise to beating her role model Tatjana Schoenmaker, the Olympic gold medallist in the 200m breaststroke in Tokyo, in the 100m breaststroke final at the Commonwealth Games.
On WhatsApp, the unassuming Van Niekerk doesn’t have a profile picture but in her status there is an image of a gold crown with green emeralds. It may be too early to anoint her as SA swimming royalty but the upward curve of her career points to her becoming a dominant force on the world stage.
“I think I have always had that champion mindset,” Van Niekerk told TimesLIVE Premium from her home in Pretoria. “You can’t say: ‘I’m tired now.’ You need to step up and reach your full potential. It’s about getting up, doing it and practising mind over matter. It’s amazing breaking records and I’m glad I’m improving every time I swim.”
That Van Niekerk has been swimming with pain in her foot for the past six years makes her recent achievements even more impressive. Earlier this week she underwent surgery on her left ankle — to remove an extra piece of bone — after consulting seven different doctors. The last doctor sent Van Niekerk for an MRI and she finally discovered what was causing the discomfort.
She will be in a cast for three weeks to allow the cut to heal and the break from swimming may be a blessing in disguise. Van Niekerk revealed she is “a bit over swimming for now” and wants to take some time off and rest before returning. Given her packed schedule, which saw the teenager running on fumes, it’s understandable that she would want to get off the metaphorical treadmill.
Van Niekerk, who is dating fellow SA swimmer Andrew Ross, who also competed at the Commonwealth Games, is quick to add a caveat to her bold statement.
“I know I’m saying now I need a break, but after a week I will probably want to go back to training if I can,” she said in reference to her programme post-operation. “Swimming is my happy place and where I escape the world and I don’t think I’ll ever lose the love of it.”
Van Niekerk, who has found love in and out of the water, said Ross was overcome by emotion when she medalled in Birmingham. “Each time he congratulated me after I got my medal at the Commonwealth Games, he cried.”
Van Niekerk’s older sister, Joa, was also a talented swimmer but lost the love for the sport. The pair swam against each other and Lara always tried to keep up with Joa, who is four years her senior, in training.
“I looked up to my sister when I was younger because she was faster than me at the time,” Van Niekerk said. “She played a very big role in how hard I trained from a young age.
“When I was younger I wanted to beat my sister and be the better swimmer. I know it wasn’t nice for her to have her younger sister beat her, but it only happened later in her career.”
If Van Niekerk returns from surgery in even better shape than before and with increased explosiveness out of the starting blocks, her competitors across the globe are set to feel what her older sister did before she stopped swimming.
Her short-term sights are on recovering from the operation and then aiming for gold at the World Short Course Championships. After competing in Melbourne at the end of the year, the longer-term aim is to qualify for the Paris Olympics in 2024, having missed out on making it to last year’s Covid-19-delayed Tokyo Games.
The teen sensation, who is home schooling, wasn’t even born when Penny Heyns was breaking barriers and winning Olympic medals for her nation, but Van Niekerk reveals that the 47-year-old has become a mentor to her and someone she admires. As she enters uncharted waters, with the favourite tag around her neck, drawing on the experience of someone like Heyns will be invaluable as she plots her future in the sport.
“In the last year, I've actually had a lot to do with Penny and she has been an amazing mentor and idol. She is a really good person, is open to helping and has taught me a lot of things. My strategy is to get fitter in the gym and stronger in the pool,” she concluded.
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