SA swimmers shine in Barcelona

South Africa's Chad le Clos bites his gold medal at the men's 200m butterfly victory ceremony during the World Swimming Championships at the Sant Jordi arena in Barcelona.

South Africa's Chad le Clos bites his gold medal at the men's 200m butterfly victory ceremony during the World Swimming Championships at the Sant Jordi arena in Barcelona.

Published Aug 1, 2013

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Barcelona - Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos on Wednesday brought South Africa their first gold medals at the 15th Fina world championships, with Giulio Zorzi weighing in with an unexpected bronze.

Olympic 100m breaststroke champion Van der Burgh took gold in the 50m breaststroke in the Palau Sant Jordi pool in Barcelona, beating Australian Christian Sprenger by the narrowest of margins - 0.01 seconds.

The result was a reversal of the 100m race on Monday night, in which Sprenger prevailed.

Zorzi, who qualified for the finals with the slowest time, was an unexpected bronze medal winner and during the medal ceremony was pulled onto the podium by Van der Burgh, who put his arm around his shoulder as the national anthem was played.

“It is a special night for SA swimming and to share the medals and podium with Giulio is special to me and him as well,” said Van der Burgh.

“This is a new era of SA swimming and there is welcomed pressure to add to the sport in SA. It's now up to Swimming South Africa (the national body) to step up and make swimming bigger.”

Zorzi said he was so happy that he could hardly explain it.

“It is the best third place I ever got. To get a medal at the world championships is the best. I am so happy and proud of myself,” said Zorzi.

Le Clos, who stunned Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly final at the Olympics last year, won in a time of 1:54.32, nearly a full second ahead of the silver medalist Pawel Korzeniowski of Poland. Bronze went to Wu Peng from China.

“It was exactly to the day and hour to winning my gold medal in London last year,” said a beaming and delighted Le Clos.

“It's a great feeling to be the Olympic and World Champion in the same event.

“The nerves before the race came to me a bit and I was a little bit nervous. That is because when you're the fastest competitor, you’re last out onto the blocks so you have to be ready.”

During the last 20m Le Clos was tossing his head left and right to see where his nearest competitors were.

“I've always done the looking... I know it's a bad habit,” he said.

His father, who made world headlines in London when he used expletives to describe his son, was in the stands wearing South African colours.

“Dad was shouting for me and I'm happy that my parents are here.”

Le Clos said that he had studied Phelps' style and this had helped him beat the American last year and to win world championship gold.

“Michael was the person who taught me the underwater and now it's part of my race,” he said. - Sapa

 

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