Rebecca Meder finished sixth in her second final of the World Short Course Championships in Budapest on Thursday before breaking her second African record of the day just a few races later.
The 22-year-old produced a personal best time of 1:03.93 for sixth place in the 100m breaststroke final, just four hundredths of a second off SA breaststroke queen Tatjana Smith’s continental record. The race was won by China’s Qianting Tang who finished two hundredths of a second off the world record in 1:02.38.
Around half an hour after her breaststroke final, Meder was back in the pool for the 100m individual medley semifinals. Earlier in the day, she had broken her own continental record, finishing third in her 100m IM heat in a time of 58.44 seconds.
She then swam an impressively quick 57.69 seconds in the seminal to take a further three quarters of a second off her previous mark, finishing second only to the swimmer in the lane next to hers, American Gretchen Walsh, who set a new world record of 55.71 seconds.
That sees Meder successfully making it through to her third final from the three events she has contested at these championships so far.
The New Zealand-based star said she expected the world record from Walsh.
“Swimming against Gretchen, I knew she would break the world record,” she said
“She’s just in a league of her own so every single time I get the opportunity to get next to her or Kate Douglass, it’s a chance for me to get as close to them as possible because then I’m going to be dipping into those times that I never thought I would be able to achieve right now.
“Those girls are the ones I’m going to be racing in LA in 2028 when [the Olympics is] in their home country so it’s preparing me now for that,” added the elated Meder.
Meanwhile, Ruard van Renen competed in his second semifinal of the championships, lining up in the 50m backstroke. Like he had in the morning heats, the US-based swimmer again produced a personal best performance, finishing seventh in 23.21 seconds, but missed out on a spot in Friday night’s final.
Earlier in the day there was massive disappointment for Chad le Clos who missed out on the opportunity to defend the 200m butterfly title he won in Melbourne two years ago. The 32-year-old finished second in his heat to Estonian Kregor Zirk but his time of 1:51.89 was not quick enough to progress to the evening final, with no semifinals being contested in the event. In his absence, 19-year-old Canadian Ilya Kharun was crowned the new world champion after claiming victory in 1:48.24 to equal the championship record.
“I am devastated,” admitted Le Clos after his heat. “I only saw Kregor [Zirk] at the end and it was too late. I was feeling good so rather shocked.”
Other South Africans in action on Thursday were Jessica Thompson, who was 21st overall in the 50m backstroke after finishing eighth in her heat in 27.10 seconds and Arno Kruger who was 25th overall in the 400m freestyle heats in 3:45.28.
The SA 4x200m freestyle relay team of Hannah Robertson, Hannah Pearse, Stephanie Houtman and Milla Drakopoulos finished 10th overall in 8:06.02, so missing out on the evening final.
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