Lara scores at world champs

● Pretoria schoolgirl Lara van Niekerk became only the second SA woman to win a world championship swimming medal as she claimed the 50m breaststroke bronze on the final night of the gala in Budapest.

Veteran Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania, the 100m Olympic champion from 2012 who only just progressed out of the heats in the last available slot on Friday, led from the start to win in 29.70sec.

Benedetta Pilato, Italy’s 17-year-old sensation and the owner of the 29.30 world record in this event who claimed the 100m breaststroke crown a few days earlier, had to settle for silver in 29.80.

The 19-year-old Van Niekerk clocked 29.90 to reach SA’s only podium of the championships. Her effort wasn’t as fast as the 29.77 African record she posted in the heats on Friday, but given that she broke 30 seconds for the first time only late last year, she’s consistently swimming in that territory with three sub-30s in Hungary.

“I’m so happy. It’s my first world champs so winning a medal is a bonus,” Van Niekerk said afterwards.

Despite her rookie status, she controlled her emotions well going into the final.

Before the last championships in 2019, no SA woman had made the podium at this showpiece, but Tatjana Schoenmaker changed that in the 200m breaststroke, and now Van Niekerk has done it in the 50m event, which is not part of the Olympic programme, but it is on the upcoming Commonwealth Games roster in Birmingham.

That is the gala that they have ultimately been targeting, said her coach, Eugene da Ponte. “This was more for experience and that’s going to be more to get the times we really want.”

This was the first time since 2007 that SA swimmers failed to win a single medal in an Olympic event.

They picked up two golds and a bronze 15 years ago, but victories in the men’s 50m butterfly and 50m backstroke, and a 50m breaststroke bronze meant little a year out from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where SA swimmers failed to reach a podium.

On paper this edition will go down as SA’s worst performance so far this millennium. Van Niekerk’s bronze might equal the one bronze medal apiece from 2001 and 2003, but this time around SA made the fewest finals — just two — with Matthew Sates going through in the 200m individual medley.

But the 2022 edition, delayed from 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, was unique because of the clash with the Commonwealth Games.

Schoenmaker, the Olympic breaststroke queen, and stablemate Kaylene Corbett, who finished fifth behind her at the Tokyo Games, skipped the Budapest gala to focus on the Birmingham Games from July 28 to August 8.

The SA swimmers who did compete in Budapest, including Van Niekerk and Sates, have also been focusing on the Games, which meant competing against the world’s best while being in almost full training.

Normally swimmers reduce their training loads leading up to major competitions to hit their peak.

And illnesses suffered by some of SA’s swimmers in the build-up to the gala, like Sates and veteran Chad Le Clos, didn’t help.

At least the competition in Hungary has shown the SA swimmers what to expect at the Games.