Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh continue to be the lifebuoys to South African swimming while the country’s women are barely keeping their heads above water.
The dynamic duo were responsible for the majority of the country’s four-medal haul at the Fina World Championships in Kazan, Russia, while Open Water swimmer Chad Ho added a gold medal in the men’s 5km.
South Africa sent a five-member squad to the pool events which consisted of Le Clos, Van der Burrgh, Sebastien Rousseau, Ayrton Sweeney and Myles Brown -not a single woman qualifying for the global showpiece.
Le Clos was slightly off the pace in the 200m butterfly when he was beaten to the wall by Hungarian ace Laszlo Cseh.
Cseh shocked the defending champion and Olympic gold medallist when he claimed the title in a time of 1:53.48 after Le Clos launched his typical late surge too late to touch the wall, clocking 1:53.68 with Poland’s Jan Switkowski bagging the bronze in 1:54.10.
While Le Clos and Cseh were battling it out in Russia, world record holder Michael Phelps was in hot form back home.
Phelps made a strong statement that he was far from a spent force with a time of 1:52.94, the fastest time since he set the world record in 2009.
Determined to make amends for his defeat to Cseh, Le Clos bounced back in emphatic style in the 100m butterfly by posting the fastest time in a textile suit ever, touching the wall in 50.56 seconds to retain his world title.
Cseh had to be content with the silver medal following in 50.87 seconds, with Singapore’s Joseph Isaac Schooling finishing third in 50.96sec.
Following the race, Le Clos was as quoted saying: “Michael Phelps has been talking about how slow the butterfly events have been recently. I just did a time he hasn’t done in four years. So he can keep quiet now.”
Phelps responded with a time of 50.45 seconds, which was faster than his 100m butterfly winning time at the London 2012 Games.
The swimming legend accused Le Clos of talking “trash” while the South African said his tongue-in-cheek comments were quoted out of context.
While Le Clos was involved in a verbal tit-for-tat with Phelps, Olympic gold medallist Van der Burgh was embroiled in a battle of wits with world record-holder Adam Peaty of Great Britain.
Peaty had been Van der Burgh’s bate noire since the Briton beat the South African in the 100m breaststroke at last year’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Their rivalry was one of the highlights at the World Championships with the duo exchanging blows which resulted in the 50m breastroke world record tumbling on two occasions in the build-up to the final.
Van der Burgh struck the first blow when he improved on his record by 0.05 seconds with a time of 26.62 in the heats, before Peaty posted a time of 26.42sec in the semi-finals.
Peaty had the last say when he out-touched Van der Burgh in the final to take the spoils in a time of 26.51sec with Van der Burgh following 0.15 seconds behind him.
Van der Burgh, however, claimed his third series title going unbeaten winning a total of 15 gold medals - seven in the 50m and eight in the 100m event.
His season came to an emphatic climax as he finally got one over Peaty, beating the Briton in both the 50m and 100m breaststroke in the final leg of the series in Dubai.
He won the sprint event in a blistering 26.77 seconds with Peaty touching behind him in 27.16sec.
On the final day Van der Burgh won the 100m breaststroke comfortably posting a time of 59.05sec with Peaty finishing in second place in 59.28.
Meanwhile, Ho won the 5km gold medal six years after he made history as the first South African to win a medal in open water swimming world championships over the same distance when he finished third in Rome in 2009.
He beat beat Germany’s Rob Muffels courtesy of a photo-finish reading with the two posting matching times of 55:17.6. - The Star