Gold, five silver and two bronze medals for the South African swimming team at the All Africa Games
The 100m backstroke proved to be the race of the evening with one of the closest finishes of the competition so far. Ricky Ellis (55.83) was a mere 100th of a second faster than teammate David de Villiers (55.84), with the bronze medal going to Egypt’s Mohamed Samy in 56.31.
It was silver and bronze for Marlies Ross and Rene Warnes in the 200m individual medley, clocking, 2:17.57 and 2:18.98 respectively, while the gold was won by Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry in 2:16.05.
In the 50m freestyle, Karin Prinsloo finished second in a hard fought race with Egypt’s Fadia Osman. Prinsloo touched the wall in 25.79 to Osman’s 25.12. The bronze medal went to another Egyptian, Rowan Elbadry in 26.04.
Myles Brown was flying the South African flag high when he added another silver medal to his name in the 200m butterfly in 1:59.28 with the gold and bronze going to Egypt’s Ahmed Akram and Ahmed Hamdy in 1:58.87 and 2:01.54 respectively.
It was bronze for Brent Szurdoki in the 1500m freestyle event, finishing the race in 15:35.48. Egypt’s Ahmed Akram won the gold in 15:11.68 and Tunisia’s Ahmed Mathlouli the silver in 15:30.35.
Jessica Ashley Cooper, Alaric Basson, Nico Meyer and Prinsloo closed the fifth day of competition with a silver medal in the 4 x 100m medley mixed relay in 3:56.27. Egypt came first in 3:56.04 and Zimbabwe third in 4:00.78. The swimming programme of the 11th All Africa Games concludes tomorrow.
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Swimming South Africa is the governing body of aquatics in South Africa.
Its objective is to encourage the practice of aquatic disciplines for all in South Africa with the purpose of promoting swimming as a life skill through Learn To Swim programmes; providing healthy exercise to South Africans of all ages and races; recruiting recreational swimmers to compete in the various competitions; and promoting competition and athlete development to the highest level. Swimming South Africa is kindly supported by SASCOC, National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, Arena, Sport & Recreation SA and Rand Water.
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