2023 SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL SC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, August 19th & Sunday, August 20th
- Generation School Swimming Pool
- SCM (25m)
- Results – Meet Mobile: SA National SC Champs
The 2023 South African National Short Course Championships took place this past weekend at Generation School Swimming Pool.
While Olympic champion Chad Le Clos was on deck watching the competition, the 31-year-old did not dive in. Le Clos is still getting back to form after having an illness that sidelined his training for this year’s World Championships. He ultimately pulled out of that Fukuoka competition.
Taking center stage at this competition, however, was LEN U23 Championships multi-gold medalist Pieter Coetze.
19-year-old Coetze of TUKS powered his way to victories in both the 100m and 200m backstroke events, taking each handily. In the former, Coetze clocked a time of 51.07 (24.91/26.16) to beat the field by nearly 2 seconds. In the latter, the Cal commit notched a time of 1:52.63 to get to the wall over 6 seconds ahead of the competition.
Coetze, who is committed to swim for the Cal Bears, also tried the 100m breast on for size. In this off event, he produced a time of 1:00.48 to snag the silver behind winner Matthew Randle who clinched gold in 1:00.12.
In Dublin a week before this meet, Coetze earned the inaugural U23 gold in both the 50m back (24.89) and 100m back (53.44) while also securing 200m back silver (1:57.05).
On the women’s side at these South African Nationals, 19-year-old Caitlin De Lange collected an impressive haul of hardware.
The TUKS swimmer took gold across 5 events including the 50m free, 50m fly, 100m IM, 50m breast and 100m free.
Caitlin De Lange’s Performances:
- 50m free gold – 24.87
- 100m free gold – 54.80
- 50m fly gold – 27.27
- 50m breast gold – 31.98
- 100m IM gold – 1:01.44
Who is Matthew R
àndle ?