{"id":10314,"date":"2024-09-08T18:09:29","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T16:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=10314"},"modified":"2024-09-08T18:09:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T16:09:53","slug":"head-coach-praises-sa-swimmers-performances-in-paris-after-11-finals-and-six-african-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=10314","title":{"rendered":"Head coach praises SA swimmers\u2019 performances in Paris after 11 finals and six African records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PRESS RELEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Head coach praises SA swimmers\u2019 performances in Paris after 11 finals and six African records<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 September 2024 \u2013 Christian Sadie wrapped up Team SA\u2019s Paralympic campaign in the pool with a fifth place in the S7 50m butterfly on Saturday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stellenbosch swimmer was in contention throughout the race and came close to securing a podium place, finishing just .25 of a second outside of the medals after equalling his own African record by finishing in 29.94 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy, I\u2019m on my PB, so I can\u2019t ask for much more,\u201d said Sadie after the race. \u201cThere were one or two things I could have done a little bit better, but I gave it my all so I’m super happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadie added that making all four finals of the four events was a significant improvement on his first Paralympics three years ago in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast time I think I got three out of five, so I\u2019m happy with 100 per cent of finals\u2026 now I’m just looking forward to another four years of hard work and coming back again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the first time I went [to the Paralympics] it was the first experience, this time we’ve come and we’ve done better, learned from those mistakes, and I think we have a lot more to learn going forward so I\u2019m super-excited.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, head coach of the swimming team in Paris Theo Verster hailed his swimmers for their performances at these Games. While none of the five reached the podium, they achieved better results overall than the team in Tokyo three years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had just four swimmers there but only made three finals,\u201d explained Verster. \u201cWith our team here, we had five swimmers who competed in 15 events and we made 11 finals which is significantly more than previously, finishing between fifth and eighth. We also broke six African records.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verster also expressed disappointment with the fact that world champion Kat Swanepoel was classed up from S4 to S5 just prior to the Games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was three definite medals that we could have got, according to the times that she was swimming and then there were about two or three swimmers that were very close but didn\u2019t convert into medals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I think with the young team we have, the swimmers have performed really well and I am really pleased with their performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe would have loved to have brought medals back for South Africa but at the end of the day\u2026 we\u2019ve shown that Para swimming is on the right track for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m also very proud of our coaches and our new manager. We are looking forward to the next four-year cycle to hopefully convert these performances into medals,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– ENDS –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRESS RELEASE Head coach praises SA swimmers\u2019 performances in Paris after 11 finals and six African records 8 September 2024 \u2013 Christian Sadie wrapped up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10315,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314\/revisions\/10315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}