Van der Burgh claims 11th national breaststroke title

Cameron van der Burgh. Photo: EP/Patrick B Kraemer

Cameron van der Burgh. Photo: EP/Patrick B Kraemer

Published Apr 4, 2017

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SHOWING no sign of slowing down, Cameron van der Burgh raced to his 11th 100m breaststroke national title at the South African Swimming Championships in Durban clocking the second fastest time in the world so far this year.

Touching the wall in a time of 59.73 seconds in his specialist event, Van der Burgh catapulted up the world rankings list.

Van der Burgh set out to dip below a minute and that is exactly what he did; keeping him within reach of world record-holder Adam Peaty of Great Britain, who boasts a world lead of 58.86 seconds.

Fellow Olympian Myles Brown became the third swimmer after Van der Burgh and Chad le Clos to post a qualifying time for the FINA World Championships when he posted the fastest time in the 200m freestyle semi-finals.

Brown won his race in a time of 1:47.51. Le Clos, who dipped below the 100m freestyle qualifying mark the night before, won his semi-final in a time of 1:49.47.

Meanwhile, Tatjana Schoenmaker could break South African swimming's drought of female representation at the world championships.

Schoenmaker posted the fastest time of the 100m breaststroke semi-finals touching the wall in 1:07.99, just 0.41secs short of the world qualifying standard.

She could become first female swimmer since 2013 to qualify for the FINA World Championships.

The 19-year-old missed last year’s Rio Olympic Games by 0.01sec in her specialist 200m breaststroke event.

Schoenmaker has already dipped below the qualifying mark in the 200m breaststroke but will have to do it again at the championships.

Independent Media

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