Glenn Snyders
Born April 7, 1987 Glenn Snyders is a South African-born Olympian competing for New Zealand. Snyders races all three breaststroke events, the 50, 100 and 200 breast, and has held New Zealand Records in all three events both long course and short course. Snyders is also the first man in New Zealand to swim the 100 breast in under 1:00, and trains under Dave Salo at USC.
Early career
Snyders began competing on the major international swimming scene early on in his career — he competed at the 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 World Championships in addition to the 2006 Pan Pacific Championships and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, but he didn’t win an international medal until 2008, when he was a member of the 4×100-meter medley relay at the FINA World Short Course Championships. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games Snyder picked up a silver in the 50-meter breast.
2014 championship season
The 2014 Commonwealth Games were held in Glasgow, which happened to be the third Games of Snyder’s career. He competed in all three breaststroke events — the 50, 100 and 200 — and swam the breaststroke leg of the 4×100-meter medley relay. Although he didn’t medal, Snyder finished 5th in both the the 100-meter breast and the medley relay.
He won his first Pan Pacific Championships medal also in 2014 on the Gold Coast, when he picked up a bronze in the 100-meter breast.
2015 World Championships
At the 2015 World Championships held in Kazan, Snyder had his most dominant race in the 50-meter breast. He advanced to the championship final of the 50-meter breast after going 27.17 and finishing 6th. In the final Snyder went 27.37 and picked up a 7th place finish. He barely missed the semi-finals of the 100-meter breast, but also finished 23rd in the 200-meter breast.