2024 SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (OLYMPIC TRIALS)
- Monday, April 8th – Saturday, April 13th
- Newton Park Swimming Pool, Gqeberha, South Africa
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Results
The 2024 South African National Championships kicked off today from Gpeberha with Olympic bids on the line. Action spans today through Saturday to give us plenty of races to watch and roster slots to track.
Although day one’s prelims included non-Olympic events of the 50m fly, 50m breast and 50m back, the contests serve as warmups for the main events unfolding as the meet rolls on.
This morning 25-year-old Erin Gallagher fired off a time of 25.70 to handily take the top seed in the women’s 50m fly. That mark fell just .04 shy of the 25.66 national record she established at least year’s World University Games.
Gallagher notched the sole outing of the field under 26 seconds to claim lane 4 for this evening’s final.
Olympic champion Tatjana Smith (nee Schoenmaker) stopped the clock in a time of 30.09 to earn the top seed in the women’s 50m breast.
She clutched the pole position by over half a second, as Lara van Niekerk was next to the wall in 30.79.
Van Niekerk owns the South African national record in this event, courtesy of the 29.72 put up at the 2022 South African National Championships.
For Smith, however, this morning’s result represents a new lifetime best. It overtakes the 30.21 Smith logged as the opening half of her prelims 100m breast swim at the 2020 Olympic Games.
World Championships bronze medalist Pieter Coetze was also in the water this morning, taking on the 50m back.
19-year-old Coetze nabbed the top spot with ease, hitting 24.54. That’s already within striking distance of the longstanding national record of 24.34 Gerhard Zandberg put on the books at the 2009 World Championships.
TS dropped a 2:19 in the 200 breast heats. It is ON
I am not tech savvy but how does one pull up the results? I tried to “download” but nothing happened?!?
Ok she’s officially TS to me now because that covers both her names.
A PB in the 50 may mean nothing… but it also could mean something special is coming.
never mind i see it’s her married last name.
Michael Andrew, welcome to Johannesburg. Your limo is waiting outside.
What a wacky results website. The results need to be downloaded as ZIP files, which include the event number, but not the event title, in the filename.
You haven’t been to the South African government’s website. We have some problems here, but we make do.
It’s also on Meet Mobile.