{"id":11479,"date":"2025-09-26T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=11479"},"modified":"2025-09-26T08:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:00:20","slug":"press-release-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=11479","title":{"rendered":"PRESS RELEASE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thompson and Le Clos strike double gold on opening day of SA short course champs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

25 September 2025 \u2013 Jessica Thompson and Chad le Clos kicked off the Bombela Concession Company SA National (25m) Championships in Pietermaritzburg with two titles each on Thursday, both collecting golds in the 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18-year-old Thompson claimed a comfortable victory in the 100m freestyle in 54.29 seconds before doing the same in the 50m butterfly in 25.66 seconds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She admitted afterwards, though, that she was hoping she would break the national short course record of 25.54 in the butterfly, a mark which has been held by Tayla Lovemore for the last seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to say anything, but that is kind of what I was going for. The record has been standing since 2018,\u201d she said afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut to walk away with two PBs, I\u2019m really happy with that. I didn\u2019t expect that, especially considering the block of training I\u2019ve had. So I\u2019m really happy with how I performed tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Clos was also happy with his day\u2019s work. He finished a body-length in front of the field in the 100m freestyle, winning in 47.55 seconds, before completing an impressive victory in the 50m butterfly in 22.79 seconds. Second place was secured by 18-year-old Tai Pearson in 23.64, while third was taken by a swimmer more than half Le Clos\u2019s age \u2013 15-year-old Eric Kotze in 23.79 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was good, I\u2019m happy,\u201d said a relaxed Le Clos, who has returned to competition after an extended break. \u201cI\u2019m in a really good space\u2026 I\u2019ve only been seriously training under a proper programme for the last six weeks. This year I was kind of floating to it\u2019s nice to swim decent and it\u2019s nice to see the youngsters swim really well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lara van Niekerk was equally pleased with her opening day\u2019s performances in Pietermaritzburg after claiming the 100m breaststroke title in 1 minute 05.98 seconds. She followed that up with second place in the 100m individual medley, an event she just swims for fun, in 1:02.78.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a week ago, the double Commonwealth Games champion was struggling with a knee niggle so was pleased just to be in action at this event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy knee started acting up a week ago, to the point where I couldn\u2019t kick breaststroke in training, so I\u2019m just really grateful to be here,\u201d she said afterwards, saying before the injury she was expecting great things at these championships. \u201cIt kind of took the expectations away\u2026 Having the knee thing last week I think took some pressure off me and I\u2019m just happy I could do that time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The men\u2019s 100m breaststroke title was secured by World Aquatics Championships finalist Chris Smith, who reached the wall in a time of 58.24 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt felt OK. I didn\u2019t taper or anything for this meet so I\u2019m happy with the time,\u201d said the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were first-time national titles for both the winners in the 200m backstroke, with Grace Morris claiming the women\u2019s title in a new personal best of 2:09.56 and Adrian van Wyk the men\u2019s in 1:56.42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe turnaround was pretty tight from heats to finals, there wasn\u2019t a lot of time, so I\u2019m not going to lie \u2013 the last 50 hurt a lot,\u201d admitted Van Wyk, who only took up swimming seriously around two years ago. \u201cThe plan is just to get better from here, so let\u2019s see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While her main focus is on the 50m freestyle, Caitlin de Lange raced to victory in the 100m individual medley in a personal best time of 1:00.69.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a lot better than this morning. This morning I messed up a few of the turns, from the back to breast especially, so I just wanted to focus on the turns and I feel like it was better, but it\u2019s definitely something I can work on in training to get under 1 minute,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The men\u2019s 200m individual medley was easily won by visiting Swedish swimmer Linus Kahl in 54.61 seconds, meaning the national title will go to second-placed Giano Dos Santos, who finished in 58.28 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bombela Concession Company SA National (25m) Championships action continues in Pietermaritzburg on Friday and runs until Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Thompson and Le Clos strike double gold on opening day of SA short course champs 25 September 2025 \u2013 Jessica Thompson and Chad le Clos…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_customify_content_layout":"","_customify_sidebar":"","_customify_page_header_display":"default","_customify_disable_header":"","_customify_disable_header_top":"","_customify_disable_header_main":"","_customify_disable_header_bottom":"","_customify_disable_page_title":"","_customify_disable_content_vertical_padding":"","_customify_disable_footer_top":"","_customify_disable_footer_main":"","_customify_disable_footer_bottom":"","_customify_breadcrumb_display":"","_customify_header_transparent_display":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11479"}],"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=11479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11480,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11479\/revisions\/11480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}