Swimmer dedicates win to Durban coach

Published Oct 10, 2003

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The medal winning, record breaking and passionate anthem singing continued at the All Africa Games pool on Friday.

The South Africans scooped five gold, four silver and two bronze medals as they took to the water for the penultimate day of the swimming events.

Ingrid Haiden and Ziada Jardine were first off in the 50m breaststroke and, like Thursday night's 100m event, were neck-and-neck for much of the race. But it was Haiden who held on for her third gold of the gala in a games record time of 32.89.

Jardine was a tenth of a second back. Salma Zeinhoum claimed the bronze in 33.33.

"It was a hard one," Haiden said after the race. "But I'm over the moon. To get triple gold was all I could have hoped for. I'm generally not a 50m swimmer. I'm more of a 100m and 200m swimmer, so for this to happen is something really special."

Stephan Ackerman dedicated his victory in the 50m butterfly to his Durban coach Graham Hill, who suffered a heart attack on Thursday night.

Having swum under 25 seconds for the first time, Ackerman said: "I was inspired after hearing the news of Graham. I hope he's okay.

"I have been stuck on 25 seconds for about four years now, so I'm very happy with the time. I just went out to get a good start and hold off the Egyptian because I know he finishes fast," he said of Haitham Hazem who finished second in 24.84, just ahead of South Africa's Kurt Muller, who claimed bronze in 25.49. More golds came from Lize-Mari Retief in the 200m butterfly in 2:17:47, Romy Altmann in the 200m backstroke in games record time of 2:15:15 (Retief finished with the silver in that race) and Velia van Rensburg, who also shattered the games record in the 1 500m freestyle, finishing in 17:24:64.

"I am really excited because everything went wrong in the 800m, so I was really determined to do well in this one," said Van Rensburg after the race.

While the Port Elizabeth swimmer may have won and claimed the record, it was Natalie du Toit, who finished in fourth place, who was given all the attention afterwards.

Du Toit claimed the gold medal in the 800m event earlier in the week and was swamped after yesterday's race by a throng of newly won fans.

More silver medals came from the men's 4x100m medley relay team and from Chanelle van Wyk, in her only race of the Games - the 200m butterfly where she finished behind Retief in 2:20:05.

And it was Neil Versveld who claimed the other bronze medal in the 200m individual medley in 2:09:91, behind African record-holder Oussama Mellouli, who finished in 2:06:91.

Meanwhile, SA's badminton players made sure the swimmers didn't hog all the attention. They brought in an impressive haul of two gold, two silvers and three bronze medals yesterday.

Michelle Edwards and Chantelle Botts defeated Nigeria to claim top honours in the women's doubles final, but then had to settle for silver in the singles competition, losing out to Nigeria's Grace George.

It was then a one-two for the South Africans in the mixed doubles, with Chris Dednam and Antoinette Uys getting the edge over Edwards and Stewart Carson to take the gold.

Dednam won bronze in the men's singles and in the men's doubles, with Johan Kleingeld, as did Uys and Marike Daubern in the women's doubles.

On the tennis courts, Raven Klaasen and W P Meyer cruised through to the quarter-finals of the singles and doubles events.

In the soccer, SA's men went down 2-1 to Zambia ruling them out of the semi-finals, but there was better news for Banyana Banyana, who drilled Ghana 4-0. Portia Modise scored a hat-trick.

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