Distance swimmer Chad Ho claimed Olympic qualification by the skin of his teeth finishing ninth at the Fina Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier in Setubal, Portugal yesterday.
When the results came in, Ho was listed as finishing in 11th place but two Australians and two German swimmer finished ahead of him which swung matters in his favour.
Each nation has a quota of one athlete per event which would eliminate one of the athletes from those two countries which sees Ho move into ninth place.
While Ho scraped through, Michelle Weber made easy work of her qualifying race finishing in sixth place with a time of 1:55:49.70 to qualify for her maiden Olympics.
The 19-yeard-old will be only female swimmer in the aquatics team that also includes diver Julia Vincent among the male-dominant team.
Ho, the face of South African Open Water swimming nearly missed out on his second consecutive Games.
Considered one of the favourites to win the race, Ho needed to finish in ninth place to book his place for the Olympic Games.
Ho won the five-kilometre gold medal at last year’s Fina World Championships six years after he made history as the first South African to win a medal in open water swimming in Rome in 2009.
He made his Olympic debut in Beijing 2008 as an 18-year-old where he finished in ninth place but missed out in London 2012.
Troyden Prinsloo, who represented South Africa at the previous Games missed qualification this time around finishing in 49th place in 1:54:42.9.
Meanwhile, Chad le Clos provided South Africa’s only highlight on third leg of the Mare Nostrum series in Barcelona where he won the 200m butterfly on Saturday before adding the 200m freestyle silver medal the following day.
Le Clos moved up into fourth place on the world rankings in his specialist 200m butterfly event when he clocked a season’s best of 1:54.42.
He touched first ahead of Russia’s Danil Pakhomov in 1:57.73 and the third-placed Carlos Peralta Gallego of Spain in 1:58.14.
In the men’s 200m freestyle he lost a close tussle with British world champion James Guy, who won the race in a time of 1:46.91.
Le Clos, who was leading the race until the final turn posted a season’s best of 1:47.11 with Kosuke Hagino bagging the bronze in 1:47.56.
Jarred Crous came close to claiming a podium finish in the men’s 200m breaststroke touching the wall in fourth place in a time of 2:11.52 with Marco Koch of Germany winning in 2:09.05.
Olympic gold medallist Cameron van der Burgh missed the meet due to illness which has been plaguing him since the start of the series. - Independent Media