Johannesburg – Three more medals came the way of the South African swimming trio in action at Wednesday’s final night of competition at the Moscow leg of the Fina World Cup.
Double-silver medallist at last week’s Fina world championships in another Russian city, Kazan, Cameron van der Burgh added his second World Cup gold medal when he won the 100m breaststroke in 59.27 seconds, another 2016 Olympic qualifying time. The previous night had seen Pretoria’s Van der Burgh win the 50m breaststroke.
Fina has ruled that the eight-leg World Cup series be held in 50m pools rather than the customary 25m to help with Olympic qualifying attempts.
The South African turned for home with a healthy half-a-second lead, and in his wake on Wednesday were the American duo of Nick Fink (59.52) and Cody Miller (1:00.07).
SA’s two silver medals came the way of Chad le Clos and Myles Brown in the 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle respectively.
Le Clos, who turned in second spot, was looking strong on the second lap but American Tom Shields produced a strong finish to touch the wall in 51:36, with Le Clos second in 51.45 (still an Olympic A qualification time). Third was another American Tim Phillips in 51.75.
And Myles Brown also got into the act, both in terms of medals and Olympic qualification times as he took second and silver in the 200m freestyle. His time of 1:47.80 was almost a second outside Russian Danila Izotov’s 1:46.93 and 0.03 ahead of another Russian Nikita Lobintsev.
Wednesday’s medal haul means the SA trio amassed six medals between them in Moscow, after each getting gold on Tuesday night.
They have little time for rest though as they now travel to the second leg of the World Cup in Paris-Chartres. That competition starts on Saturday and continues on Sunday.
ANA