Swimming South Africa has released its roster for the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan and a modest roster it is. Compared to the 17-member pool squad South Africa brought to Barcelona for the 2013 edition of the meet, this time around just 5 team members will be competing against the best swimmers in the world.
The key names in South African swimming will certainly be en route shortly to Russia, led by Chad Le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh, who both competed in Barcelona. Le Clos, ,the defending 100m and 200m butterfly champion is listed on the roster as swimming those two events, in addition to the 50m distance. However, earlier this summer, his coach Graham Hill confirmed to SwimSwam that his schedule would also include the 200m freestyle and 200m IM events. In fact, we picked him as our ‘dark horse’ in the 200m freestyle race.
Van der Burgh is lined up to race his two signature events, the 50m and 100m breaststrokes and will also be joined by teammate Ayrton Sweeney in the events. Sweeney rocked the South African Swimming Championships this past April, clinching victory in the 200m breaststroke event and also finishing tied for second in the 100m breaststroke distance.
Another South African repeating his trip to Worlds is rising freestyle talent Myles Brown, who is slated to compete in the 200m and 400m freestyles. Sebastien Rousseau is new to the South African World Championships team, but will also be headed to Kazan to swim the 200m fly and 400m IM events.
Interestingly, there are no women on the pool roster for South Africa. 2013 saw eight female swimmers, including Kyna Pereira, Rene Warnes and Karin Prinsloo. For her part, Prinsloo announced in May that she would not be seeking a Worlds roster spot berth, citing bouts of tonsillitis and a back injury as leading to ill-preparation overall; Prinsloo was unable to earn a Worlds-qualifying time at April’s South African Nationals.
For the athletes who are on their way to Worlds, Swimming South Africa’s High Performance Manager, Dean Price, says, “Our team has had a good build up in Europe and now it is time for rest and final preparation. We look forward to seeing the performances in Kazan and believe it will be a fast competition and our swimmers are ready to perform.”
Full team lists:
Swimming:
1. Cameron van der Burgh – 50 and 100m breaststroke
2. Chad Le Clos – 50, 100 and 200m butterfly
3. Ayrton Sweeney – 50 and 100m breaststroke
4. Myles Brown – 200 and 400m freestyle
5. Sebastien Rousseau – 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley
Open Water:
Men: Chad Ho (5k and 10k), Daniel Marais (5k and 10k), Nicolaos Manoussakis (25k)
Women: Carmen le Roux (10k), Michelle Weber (5k and 10k), Clarice le Roux (5k)
Read here what Roland Schoeman’s saying on this “only 5 swimmers” matter:
http://www.supersport.com/aquatics/blogs/roland-schoeman/Battle_for_balance
And also another thing. The qualifying time 50m freestyle South African sprinters had to swim to qualify to the Kazan World Champs was 22.25 ??! That’s a World Champs semifinal time !! Who’s setting this bar so high ??? The South African Swimming Federation ? And why ??
What other top swimming nation in the world can continue with corruption and mismanagement the way these guys do. The president and ceo, high performance director etc have been there for years. Surely there should be improvement. Zero females on the team. 5 total swimmers, half of them have to pay their way to Kazan to compete for their country. If the U.S. or Australia were in such a sad state of affairs there would be a complete restructuring. President, CEO and performance director would all be gone. Amazing that these self appointed, self righteous individuals are allowed to run a national sports body. How many top swimmers could they produce if there was good governance
Very true.
South Africa did the same thing in 2011. All the American based SA swimmers decide skip going to trials the year before the Olympics and then they all come back for the Olympics. The men will be in full force next year come Olympics.
I swear I read an article in which Le Clos said he was competing in the 200 free and 200 IM (maybe the 400 IM too?) at worlds. When did he change his mind and decide to only focus on butterfly in Kazan?
danjohnrob – Thanks for the comment. Yes, within this posting I disclaimed that Le Clos’ Coach told us directly that Le Clos’ schedule would indeed include 200 free and 200 IM.
What a sad state of affairs. No women, no youth…….all because there is no money.
There IS lots of money in South Africa. This country is so rich in minerals. But all the doe goes in the government officials’ pockets + their connections. Corruption X100. Take a look at the cars they drive, all BMW M6s and Audi R8s and Lamborghinis, and the swimmers can’t even afford renting a roof over their heads. And have to pay for their own trip to the World Championships. The only pool in the whole country that can host an international meeting, yes, you read right, a 55 million population country has only got ONE decent pool, King’s Park Pool in Durban. This pool is not even properly maintained. The roof leaks massively when it’s raining, and the block-starts… Read more »
Braden or someone else, off topic, but do you have some news of the California sectionals where Abbey Weitzeil has swum last weekend.
No news of her 50 free. No news of the last 2 days.
The live results don’t work.
http://www.socalswim.org/live-results/2015-CA-NV-Summer-Sectionals
And when they work, they become crazy.
Remember the girl with a PB of 58 something who wins the 100 free B-Final in 53!
And now the same for the women’s 100 fly! Caitlin Lozano with a seed time of 1.06.60 won the final in 57.91! Wow!
Weird. It looks like something has exploded there. 🙂
bobo – the sky exploded there! Most of the meet wound up being timed finals on Sunday after a big storm blew through on Saturday. Abbey swam 25.1 in the 50 free.
Ah ok. Thanks for the news.
But it doesn’t explain some curious times.
I didn’t know that a scoreboard could be drunk.
Weird that so small number of swimmers.
And with nobody on the women’s side.
Fortunately they have 2 big stars with Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh plus a rising talent with Myles Brown but we don’t see very well the next generation coming.
In track and field they take the total opposite direction with a lot of fast young athletes from the 100m to the 400m.