By Mark Etheridge
South Africa bagged two more medals on the final day of swimming at the 2017 Para Sports Festival in Mexico City on Thursday.
Star of the show was Christian Sadie who swam to his third silver medal of the championships.
He placed second in the SM7 200-metre Individual Medley in a time of 2min 47.60, behind Colombian Carlos Serrano Zarate who took gold in 2:39.14.
The rainbow nation’s second medal came from Sadie’s fellow Western Cape swimmer Franco Smit.
After setting an African record of 57.59 in the morning heats of the S12 100 freestyle, the teenager placed third in the S12 final to take the bronze medal in an improved continental record 56.26 as Brazil’s Thomas Rocha Matera won in 55.00sec.
Only other evening finalist for SA was Christelle Kriel in the SM14 100m butterfly.
She placed eighth in 1:21.99 as Germany’s Janina Breuer won in 1:11.23.
With Rio Paralympian Alani Ferreira having wrapped up her campaign the previous day the only other SA swimmer was David McKlopper in the morning heats.
He swam the men’s S2 100m backstroke. Said team manager/coach Theo Verster: ‘For a first and only swim he did a great morning swim. Unfortunately he did not make it to the evening finals and was ninth in a time of 3:34.69.
‘The team has been pushing to finish this meet off on a high note,’ said Verster. ‘They have definitely proven that this young team will still be around for many years to come and giving great service to South Africa.
‘I’m really proud of the spirit and competitiveness of the team and we’ll see much more of them in the next two years before the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo.
The two medals on the final day of swimming saw South Africa moving up the medals table to place 29th as China ended tops with 56 medals (30 gold) followed by the US with 54 and Italy with 38.