Cape Town – The South African swimming squad on Mare Nostrum duty collected four medals in the Cannes leg of the series in France on Wednesday night.
London Olympics gold medallists Chad le Clos, and Cameron van der Burgh won gold and silver respectively, and there was also a silver and bronze for Myles Brown on the first of two evenings of aquatic action.
Le Clos won the 100m butterfly, the same event he took Olympic gold in, and there was the bonus of a meet record 51.56sec for the KwaZulu-Natal swimmer.
Runner-up Steffen Deibler of Germany clocked 51.92, the only other swimmer under 52sec. Van der Burgh, who had some health problems in the last leg of the series, swam to silver in the 100m breaststroke, touching in 1:00.26 as Brazil's Felipe Franca da Silver won in 1:00.11.
The race saw all eight finalists finishing within a second of each other.
On Twitter after the race, Van der Burgh said: “2nd in the 100 tonight! Getting better, Almost back to full health! 4 medals for @teamsa16 tonight with only 60 days to go! @Olympics.”
In the same race, Youth Olympian Jarred Crous took seventh spot in 1:01.01.
Brown's silver came in the 200m freestyle, this after he had already swum the 400m free final earlier. There he touched in 3:48.82 as Russia's Aleksandr Krasnykh won in 3:49.96. In the 200m free he clocked 1:47.62 behind the host nation's Yannick Agnel (1:47.28).
The B Final saw Calvyn Justus take seventh spot in 1:50.71. The men's 50m free saw Doug Erasmus missing out on the podium by just 0.01sec as he clocked 22.55 to Japan's Shioura Shinri's 22:25.
In women's 100m breaststroke action Tatjana Schoenmaker ended fifth in 1:09.46 as Denmark's Rikke Pedersen won in 1:07.23.
Youngster Marielle Venter swum 29.47sec in the 50m backstroke heats and in the 200m backstroke B final took second spot in 2:15.19. In the 200m prelims, Olympian Karin Prinsloo swam a 2:16.58 and in the 200m free prelims she went 2:01.96.
There was also a B final runners-up berth for Michael Meyer as he swam 2:02.80 in the 200m backstroke. - African News Agency (ANA)