When the South African National Championships are held at Kings Park in Durban on April 7th-12th Olympic and World Champion Chad le Clos will be contending for a record eight titles. He will be competing in the 50, 100 and 200 butterfly, 200 and 400 IM, 100 and 200 freestyle and the 200 backstroke.
le Clos will be looking to one up both his coach Graham Hill and 2000 Olympic silver medalist Terence Parkin, who have both won seven titles in one championships.
His biggest road block to achieving the record number of gold will be Roland Schoeman. Schoeman beat le Clos in the 50 butterfly at the National Championships in 2013 posting a 23.11 compared to le Clos’ 23.72.
le Clos is looking to follow up an outstanding 2013 season where he won the 100 and 200 butterfly events at the World Championships, broke the SCM 200 butterfly world record and won the FINA World Cup crown, by challenging for seven individual titles at the Commonwealth Games.
Hill has said that his star pupil will swim seven events, 50, 100 and 200 butterfly, 100 and 200 freestyle and the 200 and 400 IM, at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.