Cape Town - There was more medal delight for Team South Africa on Day 2 of the German Cup, with teenage duo Calvin Coetzee and JP van Zyl adding to their opening day medal-winning efforts.
And Milan Erasmus also getting in on the act with a silver medal in the 200m Superlife.
The South African trio combined for six medals over the two days, which included one gold, four silvers and a bronze.
KwaZulu-Natal’s Coetzee, just 17-years-old, started the International German Cup in Warendorf with a gold medal in the 200m obstacle swim and on Saturday won silver in the 100m Rescue Medley, ahead of Van Zyl, who added a bronze to two silver medals, the second of which he won in the 100m Manikin Carry with Fins.
Van Zyl’s first silver was in the 50m Manikin Carry.
Some of the sport’s finest teenage stillwater lifesaving athletes are on show at the German Cup and Coetzee and Van Zyl’s combined five medals (one gold, two silver and two bronze) reinforces the growing stature internationally of South Africa’s junior lifesavers, in the pool and also in the surf.
The criteria for the German Cup participation was that the athlete had to be Under-18 and have placed individually in the top 10 across three events at the General Tire/Lifesaving South African still water National Championships.
Van Zyl, Coetzee and Erasmus, South Africa’s representation at the German Cup, will also represent Team South Africa at the Orange Cup in the Netherlands next weekend.
South Africa’s big guns in the Surf and Sand will be in New Zealand for next weekend’s International Surf Rescue Challenge featuring the sport’s eight best countries.
KwaZulu-Natal’s Carmel Billson will lead the female challenge in a squad that also includes her very talented sister Lauren Billson.
Billson is the 2016 and 2017 General Tire Lifesaving South Africa female athlete of the Year.
Eastern Province’s Daniel Jones will be hoping to replicate his brilliant performances at the General Tire Lifesaving South Africa National Championships and South Africa’s youthful beach sprinters Jonathan Rorke and Bradley Odendaal are strong medal options in the absence of South Africa’s beach sprint king Ryle de Morny.
Rorke stunned De Morny into second place at the Nationals in Camps Bay and Odendaal, dominant in the junior ranks for the past few seasons, excelled at the Sanyo International in Japan.
Squads:
Team South Africa - Orange Cup, Netherlands
Men
JP van Zyl (Harties Refection Lifesaving Club, North West), Milan Erasmus (Durban Surf Lifesaving Club, KZN), Calvin Coetzee (Suncoast Pirates Lifesaving Club, KZN), Rudi van Graan (Harties Refection Lifesaving Club, North West)
Women
Natalie Billson (Marine Surf Lifesaving Club, KZN), Bianca Opperman (Harties Refection Lifesaving Club, North West), Sulinke van den Berg (Mangaung Lifesaving Club, Free State), Dehanke van Rensburg (Harties Refection Lifesaving Club, North West), Deborah Dredge (Tuks Lifesaving Club, Gauteng)