2024 SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (OLYMPIC TRIALS)
- Monday, April 8th – Saturday, April 13th
- Newton Park Swimming Pool, Gqeberha, South Africa
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Prelims Recap
- Results
After tap dancing close to her 50m fly South African national record in the morning, 25-year-old Erin Gallagher took it down during tonight’s finals.
Racing in the first evening session of the 2024 South African National Championships, Gallagher fired off a time of 25.59 to top the podium. That effort took down her previous lifetime best and national standard of 25.66 notched at last year’s World University Games.
On her performance, Gallagher stated, “This afternoon I had a really good energy and I could feel that if I was going to swim a PB, now was the time to do it
“It’s always weird when you can feel you’re on track for a good swim and it’s all about seizing the moment.”
With these championships representing the nation’s Olympic Trials, Gallagher commented, “Obviously it’s always nice to think that because you do a PB in one event, it means all the others are going to be good. But it’s a completely different race, completely different strategy.
The 50s are all about going as fast as possible where the 100s are more of a controlled speed event so you never really know what to expect, but I’m looking forward to the rest of the meet for sure.”
Tatjana Smith (nee Schoenmaker) also improved upon her morning performance, taking gold in the women’s 50m breast.
The newlywed posted a time of 30.09 as a new lifetime best, holding off national record holder Lara van Niekerk in the process.
Van Niekerk settled for silver in 30.16.
Olympic champion Smith said, “I think it’s always nice to have a 50… it just breaks that ice, no main events, no Olympic qualifying events so I think that just helps to get ready for the rest of the gala.
“It’s very surprising because in training my speed was the thing that was lacking the most. I think that’s just how the training is – I train for 200 so the speed is just the add-on. That’s why I like doing speed events, just to see where I am… so it’s nice to see that it is fast and hopefully, the rest of the gala looks good as well.”
World Championships bronze medalist Pieter Coetze was another winner on the night, punching a time of 24.54 to reap gold in the men’s 50m back. That equaled what he put on the books in the morning.
“I’m not over the moon with the time. It would have been very nice to go faster than that but it’s a 50 so I’m not too worried about it,” Coetze said post-race.
I’m just glad I could get a warm-up swim on day 1, going into the rest of the meet. I felt really good in the race. I can’t really put my finger on anything that felt bad but I always go and look at the video and see what I can work on so I think I’m pretty happy with that for where we’re at right now.”
Quotes courtesy of Swimming South Africa.