{"id":9857,"date":"2024-02-19T07:09:55","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T05:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=9857"},"modified":"2024-02-19T07:09:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T05:09:58","slug":"sa-swimmers-finish-with-two-fourth-places-on-final-night-of-world-aquatics-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=9857","title":{"rendered":"SA swimmers finish with two fourth places on final night of World Aquatics Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PRESS RELEASE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SA swimmers finish with two fourth places on final night of World Aquatics Championships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

18 February 2024 \u2013 Lara van Niekerk and Pieter Coetz\u00e9 came nail-bitingly close to adding to the South African medal tally at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha on Sunday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking to add to his 200m backstroke bronze, Coetz\u00e9 finished just off the podium in the 50m event. The 19-year-old clocked a time of 24.59 seconds for fourth place with Australian Isaac Cooper claiming the gold in 24.13 seconds, American Hunter Armstrong taking the silver in 24.33 and Poland\u2019s Ksawery Masiuk the bronze in 24.44.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI definitely wanted to get on the podium tonight and swim a bit faster and to improve in the final,\u201d admitted the Pretoria teenager afterwards. \u201cIt\u2019s not nice not to be able to improve through the rounds, but it\u2019s a 50 so anything can happen\u2026 I tried my best and that\u2019s really all I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked what he\u2019s learnt from these championships, Coetz\u00e9 added: \u201cMostly on the mental side, I\u2019ve learnt what state I should be in, what expectations I should and shouldn\u2019t have, mostly those kinds of things and then in the pool, there are a few things where I\u2019ve realised my weaknesses that I need to work on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was always just going to be a preparation competition for [the Olympics]. It\u2019s very early in the year. Normally at this time of year, I\u2019m not racing, just training so it\u2019s definitely something new for my body that I wasn\u2019t used to. The whole SA team is not used to that so I think we\u2019re all very excited for the next few months and hopefully we can peak at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just one race after Coetz\u00e9\u2019s on Sunday, Van Niekerk dived in for the final of the 50m breaststroke, where she played catch-up throughout, eventually finishing fourth in a time of 30.47 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lithuania\u2019s two-time defending champion Ruta Meilutyte took the gold in 29.40 seconds with China\u2019s 100m breaststroke gold medallist Qianting Tang taking the silver in an Asian record of 29.51 and Italian Benedetta Pilato the bronze in 30.01.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Niekerk claimed the 50m breaststroke bronze at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest in 29.90 seconds, but at last year\u2019s event in Fukuoka, also finished just off the podium in fourth place in the race in which Meilutyte set the current world record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither the 50m backstroke nor 50m breaststroke is on the Olympic programme so Van Niekerk and Coetz\u00e9 will be focusing on the longer events in the build-up to the Paris Games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Matt Sates finished ninth in his heat of the 400m individual medley in 4 minutes 25.04 seconds, well off his best of 4:11.58, <\/strong>meaning he missed out on a spot in the final after placing 17th<\/sup> overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women\u2019s 4x100m medley relay team of Milla Drakopoulos, Van Niekerk, Erin Gallagher and Emma Chelius finished sixth in their morning heat in 4:03.54 while the men\u2019s team of Coetz\u00e9, Matthew Randle, Chad le Clos and Clayton Jimmie finished eighth in 3:37.29, with both teams missing out on progressing to the evening final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Aquatics Championships came to an end on Sunday night with Coetz\u00e9\u2019s bronze medal placing South Africa in joint 25th<\/sup> place on the swimming medal table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

PRESS RELEASE SA swimmers finish with two fourth places on final night of World Aquatics Championships 18 February 2024 \u2013 Lara van Niekerk and Pieter…<\/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\/9857"}],"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=9857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9858,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9857\/revisions\/9858"}],"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=9857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}