SA swimmers in Paris hailed after 11 finals and six African records

Christian Sadie wrapped up Team SA’s Paralympic campaign in the pool with a fifth place in the S7 50m butterfly on Saturday night.

The Stellenbosch swimmer was in contention throughout the race and came close to securing a podium place, finishing just .25 of a second outside of the medals after equalling his own African record by finishing in 29.94 seconds.

“I’m happy, I’m on my PB, so I can’t ask for much more,” said Sadie after the race. “There were one or two things I could have done a little bit better, but I gave it my all so I'm super happy.”

Christian Sadie placed 5th in the S7 50m Butterfly Final with a time of 20.94, setting a new African record! 🌟🏊‍♂️ A remarkable achievement—congratulations, Christian! 🇿🇦💚#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Paralympics pic.twitter.com/26hBdggQOb

— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) September 7, 2024

Sadie added that making all four finals of the four events was a significant improvement on his first Paralympics three years ago in Tokyo.

“Last time I think I got three out of five, so I’m happy with 100 per cent of finals… now I'm just looking forward to another four years of hard work and coming back again.

“I think the first time I went [to the Paralympics] it was the first experience, this time we've come and we've done better, learned from those mistakes, and I think we have a lot more to learn going forward so I’m super-excited.”

Meanwhile, head coach of the swimming team in Paris Theo Verster hailed his swimmers for their performances at these Games.

While none of the five reached the podium, they achieved better results overall than the team in Tokyo three years ago.

“We had just four swimmers there but only made three finals,” explained Verster.

“With our team here, we had five swimmers who competed in 15 events and we made 11 finals which is significantly more than previously, finishing between fifth and eighth. We also broke six African records.”

Verster also expressed disappointment with the fact that world champion Kat Swanepoel was classed up from S4 to S5 just prior to the Games.

“That was three definite medals that we could have got, according to the times that she was swimming and then there were about two or three swimmers that were very close but didn’t convert into medals.

“But I think with the young team we have, the swimmers have performed really well and I am really pleased with their performances.

“We would have loved to have brought medals back for South Africa but at the end of the day… we’ve shown that Para swimming is on the right track for the future.

“I’m also very proud of our coaches and our new manager. We are looking forward to the next four-year cycle to hopefully convert these performances into medals,” he added.