{"id":11182,"date":"2025-07-27T16:18:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T14:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=11182"},"modified":"2025-07-27T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T14:18:08","slug":"press-release-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=11182","title":{"rendered":"PRESS RELEASE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two semifinals for SA swimmers on opening day of Singapore world champs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two semifinals for SA swimmers on opening day of Singapore world champs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

27 July 2025 \u2013 The South African duo of Rebecca Meder and Erin Gallagher both made it through to the semifinals of their respective events on the opening day of the swimming programme at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meder booked her spot in the 200m individual medley semifinals with a time of 2:11.68 in the morning heats. A seventh-place finish in the evening\u2019s semifinal in 2:11.05 was then not enough to see her through to the final, however, missing out by just two places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c10th<\/sup> in the world is not too shabby, but it\u2019s not my best time, especially for how I\u2019ve been feeling in training and everything,\u201d said the 22-year-old afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was really hoping to sneak into that final. My PB would have placed me in that final\u2026 so that\u2019s a bit frustrating,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m definitely looking forward to getting into the rest of the competition\u2026 I\u2019ve got my 100 and 200m breaststroke still coming up this week, which I\u2019m so excited for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Gallagher lined up for the semifinals of the 100m butterfly after a morning swim of 57.48 seconds. She reached the first turn in third spot, which bodes well for the 50m event, but dropped back to sixth, finishing in 57.68 seconds and 13th<\/sup> overall, so missing out on the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallagher wasn\u2019t too pleased with her swim, but happy with the speed shown in her opening 50 metres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realise that I had turned third, that\u2019s really cool, so I\u2019m very happy with my front-end speed,\u201d she said after the race. \u201cI think it\u2019s the fastest I\u2019ve been out in the 100 before and it felt very comfortable and very chilled, so I think that\u2019s a very good sign for the 50, which is still in a couple of days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just have to switch off from the race. Even though it didn\u2019t go the way I wanted it to, there are some good things to take away and look forward to the rest of the racing which is the 100 free and the 50 fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still a long way to go. It\u2019s day one of the competition so I\u2019m looking forward to the rest of my races and we\u2019ll see what we can produce. Hopefully the 50 fly will be a better outcome than this one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other South Africans in action in the heats earlier in the day were Aimee Canny, who finished 19th<\/sup> overall in the 200m individual medley heats after swimming a time of 2:12.70 and Chris Smith, who finished 25th<\/sup> overall in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:00.85. Hannah Robertson was 27th<\/sup> in the 400m freestyle heats in 4:22.69, while in the men\u2019s event, Matthew Caldwell was 39th<\/sup> in 4:01.45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SA women\u2019s 4x100m freestyle relay team of twin sisters, Georgia and Olivia Nel, Cailtin de Lange and Hannah Robertson finished sixth in their heat in 3:45.33 and did not progress to the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Aquatics Championships in Singapore continue on Monday, with Pieter Coetz\u00e9 kicking off his campaign in the 100m backstroke while Meder will be back in action in the 100m breaststroke, Matt Sates in the 200m freestyle, and Catherine van Rensburg in the 1500m freestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Two semifinals for SA swimmers on opening day of Singapore world champs Two semifinals for SA swimmers on opening day of Singapore world champs 27…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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\/11182"}],"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=11182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11183,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182\/revisions\/11183"}],"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=11182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}