Chad le Clos’s incredible reign as 100m butterfly world short-course champion ended after nine years last night as he was pushed into second place in Abu Dhabi.
Le Clos, who had nursed a knee injury coming into this gala, was chasing from the start and at the halfway mark he wasn’t even in the top three.
But he fought back to touch in 49.04 sec, a shade behind 30-year-old Italian Matteo Rivolta, making his maiden podium at a world championship event. Rivolta touched in 48.87.
Le Clos, SA’s most decorated Olympian with four medals, missed out on silverware at the Tokyo Games, and his successes in the United Arab Emirates will have given him consolation. He won bronze in the 200m butterfly on the opening day on Thursday.
Le Clos has consistently made the top of the world short-course podium since 2010, when he landed the 200m ’fly title.
Le Clos has consistently made the top of the world short-course podium since 2010, when he landed the 200m ’fly title
But the 100m was the jewel in his crown, taking gold in this race at each edition of this event, staged in a 25m pool, half the distance of traditional Olympic racing. Le Clos won in 2012, 2014, 2016 and again in 2018.
Whether he can still score a victory in his remaining events — the 50m ’fly today and tomorrow and the 100m freestyle tomorrow and Tuesday — remains to be seen.
Brad Tandy failed to advance beyond yesterday morning’s heats, his 21.87 sec landing him 29th overall and well outside the 21.53 needed to make the top 16. Russia’s Vladimir Morozov, the defending champion, missed out by one-hundredth of a second.
The absence of Olympic 200m breaststroke queen Tatjana Schoenmaker and Fina World Cup series king Matt Sates will undoubtedly hurt SA on the medals table.
Sates’s 1:40.65 world junior record in the 200m freestyle would have earned him gold by almost a full second on Friday.
In the women’s 50m breaststroke Israel’s Anastasia Gorbenko finished first in 29.34, more than three-quarters of a second off Alia Atkinson’s world record.
Schoenmaker’s 30.20 personal best in this format over 50m might not sound imposing, though she would surely have gone much faster considering she clocked a 30.21 African 50m long-course record in the Olympic-sized pool in Tokyo while competing in the 100m race.
Her short-course continental marks for the 100m and 200m, 1:03.89 and 2:18.02, should come across as more competitive later in the gala, where Olympic 100m champion Lydia Jacoby of the US is set to be in action.
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