Cameron van der Burgh won South Africa's third gold medal as South Africa lifted their tally to eight on the third day at the 19th Commonwealth Games on Wednesday, with a record-breaking swim in the 100m breaststroke.
There was a late bonus for South Africa when a young 4x200m relay team of Chad le Clos, Darian Townsend, Sebastian Rossouw and Jean Basson grabbed bronze with a gutsy swim.
Van der Burgh, the 50m breastroke world record holder, turned first after the first lap and then "put every single thing I had into that last 50m".
"I was burning, everything was in pain, but I just wanted it so much that I kept pushing," said Van der Burgh.
His new Commonwealth Games record of one minute 0.10 seconds condemned the former holder of the record, Christian Sprenger (1:00.29) of Australia, into second place with another Australia, Brenton Rickard (1:00.46) in third.
Roland Schoeman took bronze in the 50m butterfly, which at the time was South Africa's sixth medal of the Games, a few minutes before Van der Burgh's race.
Schoeman, the defending champion, said he was disappointed with third, his 23.44 second sprint just millimetres behind winner Jason Dunford (23.35) Kenya and Australia's Geoffrey Huegill (23.37).
"Disappointing," said Schoeman. "I was ahead the entire way, I just didn't get my hands on the wall fast enough. It was a rookie mistake."
Gideon Louw and Graeme Moore qualified for Thursday's final of the 100m freestyle with solid swims in their semifinal on Wednesday and will be hoping to overcome Australia's Eamon Sullivan and Commonwealth Games record holder Brent Hayden of Canada in Thursday afternoon's final. Both said after their semifinal that they had left a "fair amount in the tank" for the final.
The world junior 1km time trial track cycling champion Bernard Esterhuizen crashed in the semifinal of keirin, taking out Scot Ross Edgar, although he the crash was caused by Australia's Shane Perkins, who was disqualified.
Wrestler Dean van Zyl qualified for the bronze medal match in the 84kg division, while Mona Pretorius was forced to retire from the final of the 58kg weightlifting competition because of injury. The men's table tennis team beat Kiribati 3-0.