Armand Landmann became the fourth swimmer at this event to book his ticket to the world championships in Beijing in December after achieving a qualifying time (21.05sec) in a specially arranged 50m freestyle time trial at the SA Short Course Championships in Pietermaritzburg on Saturday.
Having missed the qualifying time in Friday’s 50m freestyle final, the 18-year-old Landmann managed to achieve the required mark in a specially arranged time event. “I feel I was really hungry for the race, and I was super excited coming into the time trial because I knew, in the finals, I made a few mistakes that I could have fixed,” said Landmann. “I’m glad I got the opportunity to do a time trial and fix those little things.”
Describing what those fixes were, the Pretoria teen added: “I focused more on keeping my head down and the tumble… Then coming back in the finals, I breathed four times in the 25m, and that’s really bad. But I fixed that this morning in the time trial.”
No other swimmers achieved automatic qualifying times on Saturday, but several did swim B qualifying times, which means they can still be selected for those respective events.
Among them was Olympian Duné Coetzee, who claimed victory in the 200m freestyle in a time of 1min 56.78sec. She had already booked her ticket to China with a qualifying time in the 400m freestyle.
Coetzee’s Pietermaritzburg teammate Guy Brooks also managed to achieve a B qualifying time in the men’s 200m freestyle. After storming out at a blistering pace, he held on to win in 1:44.73.
Also thrilled with his performance on Saturday was Shaun Thomas, who took a massive three seconds off his previous best in the 200m breaststroke to claim the title in 2:09.89, also a B qualifying mark.
Tatjana Smith swam in the heats of the 200m breaststroke, recording the fastest time of the morning in 2:23.27, but having shifted her focus to the 50m event, she opted to withdraw from the evening final.
Another B qualifier on Saturday came from 19-year-old Sofia French, who claimed victory in the 400m individual medley in 4:45.79.
Meanwhile, an impressive evening swim from Jarden Eaton saw him complete a butterfly sweep, adding the 50m title to his 100m and 200m butterfly golds. He powered to victory in a time of 23.50 seconds to complete the sweep.
Kat Swanepoel was once again in record-breaking form in the Para swimming events. The Johannesburg star broke her own national record in the S5 50m freestyle in the morning heats in 44.12 seconds before going even quicker in the evening, bettering the mark to 43.49.
Supplied by Swimming SA