{"id":9855,"date":"2024-02-18T06:28:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T04:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=9855"},"modified":"2024-02-18T06:28:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T04:28:27","slug":"le-clos-gallagher-just-miss-podium-as-coetze-and-van-niekerk-book-finals-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=9855","title":{"rendered":"Le Clos, Gallagher just miss podium as Coetz\u00e9 and Van Niekerk book finals spots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>PRESS RELEASE<a><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Le Clos, Gallagher just miss podium as Coetz\u00e9 and Van Niekerk book finals spots<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>17 February 2024 \u2013 Erin Gallagher came within a fingertip of a first World Championship medal in Doha on Saturday night, finishing just out of the medals in the 50m butterfly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gallagher missed out on the bronze medal by just two hundredths of a second, finishing in fourth spot in 25.69 seconds with continental rival Farida Ousman of Egypt claiming bronze in 25.67 seconds. Sweden\u2019s Sarah Sj\u00f6str\u00f6m took the gold in 24.63 and France\u2019s Melanie Henique the silver in 25.44.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also missing out on a podium place was Chad le Clos, who finished fifth in the 100m butterfly final. The 31-year-old won his semifinal on Friday night but, despite swimming one of his quickest times in recent years, couldn\u2019t find enough finishing speed in the final, reaching the wall in 51.48 seconds for fifth. Portugal\u2019s Diogo Matos Ribeiro claimed the gold medal in 51.17 with Austria\u2019s Simon Bucher taking the silver in 51.28 and Poland\u2019s Jakub Majerski the bronze in 51.32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two of South Africa\u2019s Commonwealth Games champions, Lara van Niekerk and Pieter Coetz\u00e9, were in semifinal action on Saturday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Niekerk progressed to the 50m breaststroke final fifth fastest after finishing second behind China\u2019s Qianting Tang in her semifinal in 30.56 seconds. Lithuania\u2019s world record holder Ruta Meilutyte was the fastest qualifier in 29.42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was a good swim. There were a few mistakes I made \u2013 I had a very long glide into the wall that cost me about half a second,\u201d said Van Niekerk, who claimed the bronze in this event at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest. \u201cSo luckily that happened now and then hopefully it won\u2019t happen again tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking about reaching her second World Championships final, the 20-year-old added: \u201cIt\u2019s always great representing the country at the highest level of competition. It is obviously very nerve-wracking but I\u2019m very excited as this is one of my favourite races.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, fresh from his bronze medal in the 200m backstroke on Friday, Coetz\u00e9 booked a spot in his third final of the championships in the 50m event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 19-year-old powered to the front of his semifinal, finishing in 24.46 seconds \u2013 exactly the same time as Poland\u2019s Ksawery Masiuk \u2013 to qualify joint third fastest for tomorrow night\u2019s final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Commenting on making his third final, Coetz\u00e9 said: \u201cI\u2019m very happy with that. That was the goal coming here and I\u2019ve learnt so much in these last few days so I\u2019m very grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for tomorrow\u2019s final, he added: \u201cI\u2019m just hoping to go out there an enjoy it. I truly don\u2019t have any expectations. It\u2019s the last day so I\u2019m pretty excited to get it done. It\u2019s been a long seven days so far so I\u2019m just happy to make another final.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier in the day both Gallagher and Emma Chelius competed in the 50m freestyle heats. Gallagher finished seventh in her heat in 25.37 seconds and 17<sup>th<\/sup> overall while Chelius was sixth in her heat in 25.50 and 23<sup>rd<\/sup> overall, with both missing out on the evening semifinals \u2013 Gallagher by just one place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The World Aquatics Championships wrap up tomorrow with Matt Sates scheduled to swim in the 400m individual medley heats in the morning with a potential final in the evening session where Van Niekerk and Coetz\u00e9 will contest their finals. Both the SA men\u2019s and women\u2019s 4x100m medley relay teams are also set to compete in the morning heats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8211; ENDS &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PRESS RELEASE Le Clos, Gallagher just miss podium as Coetz\u00e9 and Van Niekerk book finals spots 17 February 2024 \u2013 Erin Gallagher came within a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9789,"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\/9855"}],"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=9855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9856,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9855\/revisions\/9856"}],"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=9855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}