Cameron van der Burgh, the 2012 Olympic 100m breaststroke champion, is expected to put his comeback to the test when he competes at the national championships in Gqeberha in April.
Van der Burgh, who will turn 40 in two years’ time, also lifted the Olympic 100m breaststroke silver in 2016, but he never got to compete in his favourite 50m breaststroke event, which was not on the roster.
It has, however, been included for the first time at Los Angeles 2028, alongside the one-lap backstroke and butterfly sprints, enticing him back into the pool for the first time since retiring in 2018.
Success would see him become the first South African to win Olympic medals at three separate Games. Reaching the podium would also make him the oldest male swimmer to secure an Olympic medal, eclipsing Briton William Robinson who was 38 when taking the 200m breaststroke silver at London 1908.
American Dara Torres, at 41, was the oldest woman to land silverware, taking silvers in the 50m freestyle and two relays at Beijing 2008.
Measuring progress
Competing at the national gala will be an important step in measuring Van der Burgh’s progress since diving back into training last year. And he might not have it all his own way as he goes up against young gun Chris Smith, who set the 50m breaststroke junior world record in 2024, as well as a rejuvenated Michael Houlie, the 2018 Youth Olympic champion.
Van der Burgh’s South African record stands at 26.54sec, which he set in July 2017, while Smith’s best is 26.75. US-based Houlie, 25, improved his best to 26.72 last month, his fastest time since 2019.
There will be space for only two of them in Los Angeles, but all three could be accommodated at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July. The Games will be the one familiar showpiece in an otherwise different-looking year for the stars of South Africa’s two main Olympic codes — swimming and athletics.
Both codes will be the main focus of the 2026 Games, which will be held on a smaller scale with just 10 sports overall. The Scottish city, which hosted the 2014 showpiece, saved the day when Victoria state in Australia pulled a Durban and abandoned the event.
Four years ago, South Africa were given 99 spots for individual sports at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and this time they’ll get 67.
Both swimming and athletics will be pushing relay teams.
Every international racing opportunity for me is important, and it falls [at] the end of a [training] cycle. It gives us an idea of where he is. What is the race strategy looking like. How far have we progressed in the building of the performance for LA.
— Rocco Meiring, Pieter Coetzé’s coach
SA’s relay teams
Backstroker Pieter Coetzé is expected to be the backbone of potential 4x100m medley and freestyle relay teams, which Swimming South Africa is trying to build in time for Los Angeles.
To date the men’s 4x100m freestyle gold won at Athens 2004 remains the country’s only men’s relay medal at the Olympics.
The women have won two relay medals, although both 4x100m freestyle bronzes were before isolation, at Amsterdam 1928 and Melbourne 1956.
A couple of weeks after Glasgow, the swimmers will head to the Pan Pacific Championships in Irving, California, to begin getting used to competing in the US.
Coetzé’s coach, Rocco Meiring, would like his charge to compete in the US 11 times before the Olympics. “Every international racing opportunity for me is important, and it falls [at] the end of a [training] cycle,” he said.
“It gives us an idea of where he is. What is the race strategy looking like. How far have we progressed in the building of the performance for LA.”
Elite competition
Track and field athletes will be looking to the newly introduced World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September, but those wanting to get there will have to be highly ranked.
The elite competition will see limited fields of 16 in track events and eight in field events.
Right now, not a single South African has booked a spot in an individual event, although the mixed 4x400m relay team is in the line-up.
In fact, not a single South African is inside the top 16 or top eight of their events now, although that will change once the season kicks off locally in the next month or so.
Even so, there won’t be a massive South African contingent there.
This year has a new feel about it with the competitions coming up, but perhaps Van der Burgh can deliver some retro-glory.
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