{"id":11483,"date":"2025-09-27T09:13:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T07:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=11483"},"modified":"2025-09-27T09:13:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T07:13:24","slug":"press-release-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=11483","title":{"rendered":"PRESS RELEASE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thompson breaks 16-year-old national record as Le Clos collects two more golds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

26 September 2025 \u2013 Jessica Thompson stole the show on the second day of action at the Bombela Concession Company SA National (25m) Championships in Pietermaritzburg on Friday, breaking a national record and equalling the African mark held by Zimbabwe\u2019s new International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 18-year-old was disappointed to miss out on the SA record in the 50m butterfly on Thursday, but responded in the best way possible, setting a new mark in the 50m backstroke of 26.85 seconds. That saw her breaking the record that had been set by Chanelle van Wyk 16 years ago. Van Wyk was poolside to witness the achievement, providing the commentary for the television coverage of the championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so good, especially after last night. I think it was a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but I\u2019m really happy to have gotten it tonight and just getting that time is a really big deal for me,\u201d said an ecstatic Thompson afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for having Van Wyk on hand to watch her break her 2009 record, Thompson added: \u201cIt was really nice to have her there and seeing where swimming in South Africa is progressing to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the 50m backstroke title was claimed by Chad le Clos, who is rapidly reinventing himself as a backstroker. He powered to victory in 23.62 seconds, in a race he described as the main takeaway of his last two days of racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former Olympic champion was back in more familiar territory just a few minutes later, also securing victory in the 100m butterfly in a time of 50.81 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel great. I think the backstroke was the highlight\u2026 It\u2019s weird, my backstroke and my freestyle were probably my better swims, not my butterflies,\u201d he said afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to try and keep going as long as I can and I think the 50s have given me a lot of life, especially short course. I know I will improve and I\u2019ve got a lot of big things coming\u2026 I think I\u2019m going to settle nicely into the new year, build towards April and then hopefully surprise everybody next year, that\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women\u2019s 100m butterfly produced a surprise champion in 16-year-old Abigail Kotze, who beat Olympian Dun\u00e9 Coetzee to the title in a time of 1:00.69.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously you go into it hoping, I think everyone hopes and believes they can do it. But I\u2019m just so grateful to actually have done it,\u201d said the Western Cape swimmer. \u201cSwimming against Dun\u00e9 \u2013 I\u2019ve been looking up to her since I was 10 or 11, so that was just such a big honour swimming against her,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coetzee had earlier picked up victory in the 200m freestyle, winning in a time of 1:59.71, while it was Matthew Caldwell who took the men\u2019s title in 1:49.01.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI actually didn\u2019t see the guys in the outside lane there. It was a really good swim from those guys,\u201d said Caldwell afterwards. \u201cI knew I was racing my race, so whatever they did, I was doing my own thing, so it was good\u2026 It went like I wanted it to. I did my little last push at the end and got the medal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 800m freestyle titles were decided earlier in the day, with Carli Antonopoulos thrilled to claim a first national short course title, winning in 8 minutes 53.28 seconds, while 17-year-old Stephan Engelbrecht took the win in the men\u2019s race with a time of 7:56.72.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antonopoulos was especially pleased with the result, considering the year she has endured \u2013 having slipped and broken her arm in February and only returning to full training in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt feels good. I\u2019m really happy, especially after what happened at the beginning of the year, breaking my arm and coming back, so it\u2019s been good,\u201d she said of the victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were also first-time champions in both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s 400m individual medley with 18-year-old Keira van Heerden taking the women\u2019s title in 4:51.13 and Juan Boshoff the men\u2019s in 4:21.29, taking over two seconds off his previous personal best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Heerden was taken by surprise by her victory, given this was her first time competing in the 400m individual medley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is my first time swimming the 400 IM, I just went into it because I wanted to improve my 200 IM, building up more fitness for the 200 so that\u2019s just been the goal the whole time,\u201d explained the 18-year-old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

Thompson breaks 16-year-old national record as Le Clos collects two more golds 26 September 2025 \u2013 Jessica Thompson stole the show on the second day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9760,"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\/11483"}],"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=11483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11484,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11483\/revisions\/11484"}],"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=11483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}