{"id":8676,"date":"2023-03-06T07:41:53","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T05:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=8676"},"modified":"2023-03-06T07:47:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T05:47:44","slug":"speedy-coetze-corbett-and-van-niekerk-wrap-up-final-meet-ahead-of-national-champs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=8676","title":{"rendered":"Speedy Coetz\u00e9, Corbett and Van Niekerk wrap up final meet ahead of national champs"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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 <\/strong>5 March 2023 \u2013 World junior champion Pieter Coetz\u00e9 showed his speedwork is well on track by recording an A qualifying time for the Swimming World Championships in the 50m backstroke on the final day of action at the Grand Prix meet in Durban on Sunday.<\/p>\n

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The 18-year-old stormed to victory in a time of 25.09 seconds and was back in the pool a little later to record a B qualifying time in the 200m backstroke, winning in 1:58.34 \u2013 just 0.27 seconds off the A qualifying mark.<\/p>\n

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Fellow Pretoria swimmers Kaylene Corbett and Lara van Niekerk also put in promising early-season performances. Corbett took victory in the 200m breaststroke in an A qualifying time of 2:25.81 \u2013 almost a full 10 seconds ahead of her nearest challenger.<\/p>\n

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Van Niekerk, meanwhile, swam an A qualifier in the heats of the 50m breaststroke, finishing in a time of 30.65. Her time in Sunday morning\u2019s final was 31.04, but still saw her finishing a second and a half in front of Corbett.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m happy \u2013 especially with the Olympic qualifying time [in the 100m breaststroke]. The other events didn\u2019t go as well as I hoped, like the 50m breaststroke,\u201d said Van Niekerk afterwards. \u201cI still managed to go 30.6 which is actually good considering I haven\u2019t done any front-end speed\u2026 I need to keep in mind that we are in hard training.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNow I know exactly where I am in the training so it\u2019s just a matter of getting that last little bit of fitness and the front-end speed going.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Rebecca Meder showed her versatility by claiming her third and fourth titles of the weekend on Sunday, taking victory in the 400m freestyle in 4:17.93 (although she had swum a 4:16.32 in the heats) and the 100m freestyle in 55.67 \u2013 both B qualifying times for the World Championships in Japan this July.<\/p>\n

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Erin Gallagher finished second in the 100m freestyle in 55.97 seconds. She then went on to win the 50m butterfly in 26.87 seconds. Both times were also B qualifying marks.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve worked hard so I\u2019m really happy with my times,\u201d said Meder. \u201cTo be going those times just before Nationals is a big confidence booster for me. So it\u2019s just a matter of training hard in the next five weeks, getting in some mileage and speed and getting in some power and then seeing what I can produce at Nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gallagher added: \u201cWe\u2019re all in the middle of hard training at the moment so I didn\u2019t have too many expectations coming into the gala. I think it was more the feeling of getting a suit on, standing up and racing against some of the best swimmers in the country which is always such a privilege to do.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut it\u2019s definitely a stepping stone to Nationals, which is another stepping stone for world champs,\u201d added the Commonwealth Games silver medallist.<\/p>\n

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Others who achieved B qualifying times in the heats but not the finals were Dakota Tucker in the 400m individual medley (4:49.87 in the heats and 4:52.67 to win the final), Clayton Jimmie in the 50m freestyle (22.88 in the heats and 23.01 in the final) and Milla Drakopoulos in the 100m backstroke (1:02.67 in the heats and 1:03.01 in the final).<\/p>\n

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Competitors will need to swim qualifying times at the SA National Championships in Gqeberha from 12-16 April to book their places on the team to the World Championships which take place in Fukuoka, Japan from 23-30 July 2023.<\/p>\n

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ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Photo credit: Gaby Benjamin<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 5 March 2023 \u2013 World junior champion Pieter Coetz\u00e9 showed his speedwork is well on track by recording an A qualifying time for the Swimming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"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\/8676"}],"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=8676"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8682,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8676\/revisions\/8682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}