SA swimmers continue to light up African Games pool

South Africa’s swimmers continued to make their presence felt on the podium, claiming eight more medals on the penultimate night of action at the African Games in Accra, Ghana on Tuesday.

Catherine van Rensburg picked up her third individual gold medal of the championships after storming to victory in the 400m individual medley. She finished in a time of 4 minutes 56.13 seconds with teammate Kate Meyer taking the bronze in 5:02.63.

Simone Moll also made another visit to the top of the podium, adding the 50m breaststroke title to the 100m breaststroke gold she claimed earlier in the competition. Moll finished in a new African Games record time of 31.96 seconds with Meyer once again in on the action, claiming the silver in 33.03.

Moll had made her intentions clear in the morning session, smashing the previous Games record of 32.20 that was set by fellow South African and Olympic finalist Kaylene Corbett in 2019, and then bettered it again in the final.

The other South African gold of the night came from the men’s 4x100m freestyle team of Jarden Eaton, Cameron Casali, Liam Vehbi and Jonah Pool-Jones who claimed victory in a time of 3:23.86, well ahead of Egypt (3:25.43) and Nigeria (3:26.01).

Meanwhile, Talya Jonker added a third silver medal to her individual haul, finishing second in the 100m backstroke in 1:03.36 after just being edged out by five hundredths of a second by Egypt’s Sara El Sammany.

Fresh from his shared gold medal performance in the 50m backstroke a day earlier, Jonah Pool-Jones secured the bronze in the 100m event, finishing in 56.98 seconds. The man he shared the gold with on Monday, Algeria’s Abdellah Ardjoune, once again topped the podium in the longer race, finishing in 55.94 with Zimbabwe’s Denilson Cyprianos taking silver in 56.32.

There was another bronze medal for Liam Vehbi after finishing the men’s 400m individual medley in a time of 4:31.54. The Algerian duo of Jaouad Syoud (4:24.59) and Ramzi Chouchar (4:30.95) won the gold and silver.

The swimming competition at the African Games wraps up on Wednesday.

SA swimming medals at the African Games

GOLD

Clayton Jimmie (100m freestyle)

Caitlin de Lange (100m freestyle)

Catherine van Rensburg (1500m freestyle)

Simone Moll (100m breaststroke)

Catherine van Rensburg (400m freestyle)

Cailtin de Lange (50m backstroke)

Jonah Pool-Jones (50m backstroke)

Catherine van Rensburg (400m individual medley)

Simone Moll (50m breaststroke)