WADDELL MAKING A SPLASH
His 50m backstroke win takes South Africa to four medals at the World Championship
ZANE Waddell caused a stunning upset on the final day of the Swimming World Long-Course Championships in Gwangju, South Korea clinching the 50m backstroke gold medal yesterday.
His gold medal pushed South Africa’s medal tally at the championships to four adding to Chad le Clos’ two bronze medals, and the silver Tatjana Schoenmaker won on Friday.
The 21-year-old Waddell upset world record-holder Kliment Kolesnikov of Russia smashing into the wall in a time of 24.43 seconds.
Waddell touched ahead of Russians Evgeny Rylov in second place with 24.49 and Kolesnikov in 24.51.
The South African’s time was just 0.09s short of the South African record Gerhard Zandberg set in 2009.
“The night came together. The warm-up went well. A lot of emotion at the end of that race,” Waddell told Swimming World Magazine.
“It has always been a dream of mine to be a world champion, and it’s amazing to finally realise that dream and go out and achieve it.
“I knew it was going to be the closest race of my life. I have huge respect for the other seven competitors out there, and it’s just an amazing spirit to have got my hand first to the wall, it just so happened to be me, it’s amazing.”
Waddell’s victory was the fifth 50m backstroke medal by a South African since Zandberg won bronze at the 2003 Barcelona championships. Zandberg has stepped onto the podium in the sprint event four times, winning the gold medal in 2007 Melbourne.
The championships marked the rise of South African female swimming thanks to the heroics of Schoenmaker.
Four years ago, South African female swimming was stuck in the doldrums with no sign of any women willing or able to take up the challenge.
Olympic gold medallists Le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh has been South Africa’s medal mainstays over the last decade. Van der Burgh’s retirement from international swimming meant the country had lost a significant contributor to its medal tally at global events.
Schoenmaker emerged as a worthy replacement making it both the 100m and 200m breaststroke finals. She became the first South African women to win a medal at the World Long-Course Championships when she won the 200m breaststroke silver medal on Friday.
To add further optimism about a female swimming revival, Schoenmaker stepped onto the blocks in the 200m breaststroke final with training partner Kaylene Corbett.
National coach Graham Hill said while Le Clos and Schoenmaker performed according to expectations, there were others that fell short of the mark.
“In general, a few of the other swimmers were disappointing, but there are no excuses where they were swimming below par and not firing or getting the results we wanted,” Hill said.
“Those going to the Africa Games in Morocco will have to step up again in two-and-a-half weeks and perform a lot better than they did here.”