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Johannesburg - The South African swimming contingent delivered a mixed bag of results at the opening leg of the Mare Nostrum Series in Canet-en-Roussillon, France over the weekend.
Olympic gold medallist Chad le Clos won the gold medal in the men’s 100 metre butterfly on Saturday before surprisingly missing on a podium finish in the 200m butterfly the following day.
Le Clos touched first in the 100m butterfly in a time of 51.88 seconds to beat American Ryan Lochte, who clocked 52.29s, while Takeshi Kawamoto bagged the bronze with a time of 52.30s.
On Sunday Le Clos was pipped in his specialist 200m butterfly with Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh claiming first place posting a winning time of one minute, 56.12 seconds (1:56.12).
Japan’s Masato Sakai touched in second place with a time of 1:56.14 while Viktor Bromer of Denmark taking third in 1:56.26 with Le Clos in fourth with 1:56.36.
He then added third place in the B final of the 100m freestyle clocking 49.58s.
Olympic gold medallist Cameron van der Burgh fell short of a medal position in the 100m breaststroke on the first day but bounced back on Sunday with a second-place finish in the 50m breaststroke.
World record holder Adam Peaty of Great Britain was in blistering form in the 50m breaststroke posting a winning time of 26.89s to beat Van der Burgh to the wall.
Van der Burgh clocked 27.35s for second place with Yasuhiro Koseki of Japan finished in third place with 27.56s.
On the first day Peaty won the 100m breaststroke with a time of 59.83s, with Koseki in second place in 59.96s and Germany’s Christian Vom Lehn in third in 1:00.24 with Van der Burgh finishing just behind him in 1:00.36.
Myles Brown bowed out of the two-day gala with a silver and a bronze medal in the 400m and 200m freestyle respectively.
In the 400m freestyle he finished behind Great Britain’s James Guy, who clocked 3:46.84 with the South African touching in 3:48.28 while Ryan Cochrane of Canada bagged the bronze in 3:49.95.
Brown had to be content with the bronze in the 200m freestyle as Sebastiaan Verschuren of the Netherlands clinched first place in a time of 1:48.05.
Guy finished in a close second place posting a time of 1:48.07 with Brown taking third place in 1:48.05.
