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Pietermaritzburg - Myles Brown took to the water for the first time after his World Cup success last week with a sound victory to open the South African Short Course Swimming Championships which got under way in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday evening.
Brown, who broke the Africa and South African records in the 400m and 1500m freestyle events over the weekend in Eindhoven, Netherlands, returned a tired swimmer but still went on to win the men's 200m freestyle comfortably in 1:45.65. He was followed by juniors Calvyn Justus in 1:49.17 and Joshua Steyn in 1:49.34.
Rene Warnes showed signs of dominating the tougher women's races with a solid victory in the 200m butterfly, touching in 2:13.30 with Tarryn Els a comfortabe second in 2:18.30. Carmen le Roux was third in 2:22.51.
Warnes was back at it in the 400m individual medley, taking her second gold medal in a respectable 4:46.72 with Jolandi Els also posting an encouraging time for the silver medal in 4:51.79. Megan van Wyk took the bronze in 5:02.01.
Up-and-coming Mark Hunter produced one of the swims of the evening when he made use of his home-pool advantage. He swam away from his opposition in the men's 200m breaststroke.
Hunter bagged his first senior gold medal with an outstanding 2:13.71 ahead of Jared Pike in 2:15.59 and Brenden Crawford in 2:17.05.
Hunter did not have much rest before the men's 400m individual medley and ended third in another solid swim of 4:26.74. The race was won by another junior who showed his exciting potential for the future, Paul van Achterbergh, who touched in 4:22.91 with Bryan Gray second in 4:25.21.
In the final individual race of the evening, Carmen le Roux repeated her victory from last year's event in the women's 1500m freestyle, clocking 17:05.59, ahead of sister Clarice, who took the silver in 17:33.90, followed by Anja Gericke in 17:58.11.
