Durban: The South African National Championships got off to a fast start, as Cameron van der Burgh qualified for the Rio Olympics, on the first day of the championships at the Kings Park Aquatic Centre yesterday.
The 2012 London Olympic medallist, who specialises in the breast-stroke, made a splash on the opening day of the national championships, as he dipped under the Olympic qualifying mark for the 100m breast-stroke.
Van der Burgh is set to be one of SA’s medal hopes come August, and his early season form bodes well for the global showpiece even if that is the focal point for all of the swimmers gathered in Durban this week.
Van der Burgh, now 27, is considered to be at his peak in the breast-stroke discipline, and he closed off the morning session at King’s Park in fine style, sealing his spot on the plane for Brazil. The morning sessions are reserved for heats every day, starting at10am every day until Saturday.
The evening sessions are for the finals in each discipline. KwaZulu-Natal’s Sebastien Rousseau not only won the national title, in the opening final of the 2016 championships, but he also did it in an Olympic qualifying time.
Notably, second-placed Michael Meyer, swimming out of Central Gauteng, finished a second behind Rousseau, but it was still good enough to also qualify for the Olympics. The marathon individual men’s race kicked off an interesting first evening of competition, which also featured a host of freestyle races, and the semi-finals of Van der Burgh’s 100m butterfly race. - Cape Times