Other Sport
Schoeman starts with a bang
2009-04-16 13:48
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Durban - The Roland Schoeman swim show gained further momentum as he posted his third world championship 'A' level qualifying performance in as many 50 metres freestyle starts, on the second night of the Telkom SA National Aquatics Championships at the Kings Park Aquatics Centre on Wednesday.
Schoeman's gold medal-winning performance of 21.79 seconds was faster than the 21.81 clocked in the semifinal and his heats time of 21.83 – all well inside the required maximum of 22.33 needed to be shortlisted for a SA team place at the FINA World Championships in Rome in July.
“I have been using the same stroke that I used during the short course championships last year and have been training quite well under (coach) Igor (Omeltchenko) in Pretoria since January,” said Schoeman.
Lyndon Ferns, a team-mate of Schoeman in SA's 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay gold-medal-winning at the 2004 Athens Olympics, also pencilled his name into the SA provisional squad for the world championships, in finishing second in the 50 metres freestyle final in 22,27.
Arizona-based Jean Basson posted a world championship qualifier of 1:46.62 in the 200 metres freestyle semi-final, having qualified for Rome in the 400 metres freestyle (3:48.58) on the opening night of the championships. Basson will be joined on the SA team shortlist for the 200 metres freestyle by KwaZulu Natal's Jasper Venter who clocked 1:48.29.
Pretoria's Cameron van der Burgh also went faster than his opening night world championship qualifier time of 1:00.28, by clocking 1:00.02 to win gold in the 100 metres breaststroke.
On the backstroke scene, George du Rand made his intentions for a SA team place clear by posting a qualifying time of 1:59.85 in the 200 metres backstroke, with Zimbabwe's Olympic star Kirsty Coventry also qualifying for the world showpiece in Rome in the 200 metres backstroke in 2:08.32 – faster than the opening day's effort of 2:10.38.
Capetonian Sebastien Rousseau stole the show on the opening night in bettering his African record in a world championship qualifying time of 1:55.51 in the 200 metres butterfly semifinal, and his gold in Wednesday's final in 1:55.56 ahead of KwaZulu Natal's 17-year-old sensation Chad le Clos (1:57.57), was again inside the world championship A standard qualifying time of 1:57.14.
Thursday morning's heats session begins at 09:30 with the evening session beginning at 18:00.