Schoenmaker’s star continues to rise

Tatjana Schoenmaker posted a World Championships qualifying time in the 200m breaststroke over the weekend. Photo: Muzi Ntombela/Backpagepix

Tatjana Schoenmaker posted a World Championships qualifying time in the 200m breaststroke over the weekend. Photo: Muzi Ntombela/Backpagepix

Published Feb 27, 2017

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JOHANNESBURG - Tatjana Schoenmaker confirmed her status as a rising star at the Swimming SA Grand Prix in Stellenbosch over the weekend when she posted the second fastest women’s 200m breaststroke time in the world this year.

The 19-year-old dipped below the World Championship qualifying time clocking a new personal best time of two minutes, 24.93 seconds (2:24.93) but will have to do it again at the South African championships in Durban in April to book her place for the global showpiece.

Last year Schoenmaker posted an Olympic qualifying time in the same pool but missed the mark by 0.01 second at the trials.

She made a clean sweep of the breaststroke events over the weekend touching the wall first over the 50m, 100m, and 200m distances.

Schoenmaker beat perennial runner-up Kaylene Corbett in all three events first winning the 100m breastroke in a time of 1:09.28. Corbett posted a time of 1:09.39 with Hanim Abrahams finishing third in a time of 1:11.13.

Corbett finished in a distant second place in the 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:30.98 with Schoenmaker adding the 50m title to her collection posting a time of 32.22 seconds.

Olympic gold medalist Chad le Clos posted the fourth fastest 200m butterfly time in the world this season clocking 1:56.54 in his first race in his favourite event. He was followed by Myles Brown in 2:02.10 with Ayrton Sweeney bagging the bronze medal with a time of 2:05.22. Le Clos added two more gold medals winning the 100m butterfly in a time of 52.83 seconds which was slower than the world-leading time he posted during the Durban leg of the series.

He added the 200m freestyle gold medal to his telly posting a time of 1:48.38.

Fellow Olympic medallist Cameron van der Burgh won the 100m breaststroke in a time of 1:02.04 with Michael Houlie touching in second place in 1:02.05 with Alaric Basson taking third place with 1:02.65.

Olympian Matthew Meyer was the top distance swimmer at the gala winning both the 1 500m and 400m freestyle events.

He finished well ahead of Brent Szurdoki in the 1 500m freestyle clocking a time of 15:15.84 more than 15 seconds ahead of his nearest rival.

Meyer also had Szurdoki’s number in the 400m freestyle winning the race with a time of 3:54.92 with Jarryd Baxter filling the final place on the podium yesterday.

The Star

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