SA’s Smith finishes sixth in first long course world champs final

30 July – Chris Smith was the sole South African in action during the evening session at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore on Wednesday, having earned a place in his first-ever global long course final.

In a nail-bitingly close 50m breaststroke showdown, where just 0.21 of a second separated the top six finishers, Smith didn’t get the speediest of starts and was forced to chase from the outset. The 19-year-old ultimately touched the wall in sixth place, clocking a time of 26.75 seconds.

That shaved a further two-hundredths of a second off the personal best he had set in the semifinals a day earlier. It also places the Centurion swimmer just 0.21 of a second away from 2012 100m breaststroke Olympic champion Cameron van der Burgh’s national and continental record in the 50m event.

Getting his fingertips to the wall first was Italy’s Simone Cerasuolo, who took the gold in 26.54 seconds with Russian Kirill Prigoda second in 26.62 and China’s Haiyang Qin third in 26.67.

“I’m super happy with how it went and everything. I still think that I can go a bit faster, but I just have to work on it,” said a satisfied Smith afterwards.

“I just want to keep focused on my dive and my pull-out. I think those are the two main things where I lag behind a bit, but next time, definitely, I want to see if I can maybe get on the podium.”

Earlier in the day, Matt Sates and Olivia Nel were in action in the individual heats. Sates finished 28^th overall in the 200m individual medley in 2:01.80, while, after finishing sixth in her heat, Nel was 23^rd overall in the 50m backstroke in 28.23 seconds, with neither making it through to the semifinals.

Fresh from his gold medal in the 100m backstroke on Tuesday, Pieter Coetzé led off the South African 4x100m mixed medley relay team of Kaylene Corbett, Erin Gallagher and Matthew Caldwell. They finished eighth in their heat and 18^th overall in 3:52.03 to also miss out on the final.

Thursday’s programme in Singapore will see Coetzé returning to the pool for the heats of the 200m backstroke – the event in which he claimed bronze at last year’s world championships. Gallagher will line up in the 100m freestyle, while Corbett and Rebecca Meder will take on the 200m breaststroke. The women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team of Aimee Canny, Georgia Nel, Hannah Robertson and Catherine van Rensburg will also be in action.