Neil Versfeld of the Pietermaritzburg Seals Club set yet another African swimming record in the last session of finals of the Telkom SA National Short Course Championships at Pietermaritzburg's G C Jolliffe Swimming Pool on Monday.
Versfeld beat the previous record holder, William Diering (Northern Tigers), to the timing pads in a time of 2 min 04.88sec to finish well inside Diering's best time of 2:06.78, with Diering second in 2:07.51.
In his first short course gala in four years, Versfeld said: "I'm delighted to be leaving Pietermaritzburg with not only the 200m breaststroke gold medal, but also an African record."
"I said before the start of the championships that world records would fall here in Pietermaritzburg, and it's great for SA swimming that so many new marks have been set over the past four days."
Versfeld was referring to the 50m and 100m breaststroke world records set by Cameron van der Burgh, and the 50m freestyle world best by Roland Schoeman on the first two days of the meet.
Another African record was set by Lyndon Ferns, who swam a 50.95 in the semi-final of the 100m butterfly to beat his own previous record of 51.04, and went on to lower it even further to 50.53 in Saturday's final.
Last night he was in action again to win a second gold in the 100m freestyle in 46.88.
While times in the women's finals were disappointing, at 31 years Mandy Loots of Gauteng Dolphins was the most impressive female performer, gathering a hat-trick of gold medals last night to add to her two gained earlier in the meet.
Last night's successes came in the 100m butterfly (1:00.26), the 200m backstroke (2:08.63) and the 200m individual medley (2:12.73), while she also struck gold in the 100m backstroke (1:00.31) and the 100m individual medley (1:01.62).
She came close to breaking Charlene Witstock's 100m backstroke African record of 1:00.16 and her own 100m individual medley record of 1:01.46.
In multidisability events, Craig Groenewald broke a world record yesterday in his category with 2:19.99 in the men's 200m individual medley, and Natalie du Toit, swimming in the able-bodied women's 200m individual medley, set a multi-disability world record in her category of 2:29.41.
Swimming SA will soon announce the qualifiers for the African leg of the Fina/Arena Swimming World Cup to be held at the King's Park Aquatics Centre in Durban in October.
- Libby Trickett, Christian Sprenger and Emily Seebohm set world short-course records at the Australian swim championships yesterday, reports Sapa-AP.
Trickett broke her own record in the 100m freestyle, finishing in 51.01 to improve on her mark of 51.70 set three years ago.
Sprenger broke the world mark in a 25m pool in the 200m breaststroke, finishing in 2:01.98. The previous record of 2:02.92 was set more than five years ago by American swimmer Ed Moses.
Seebohm's time of 58.54 for the 100m individual medley broke American Natalie Coughlin's previous mark of 58.80, set in November 2002.