Day Two Finals, 2004 Telkom South African Short Course Swimming Championships, Neville Smith Reporting

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, September 6. MELISSA Corfe picked up her second Continental/National mark in two days with her 400 freestyle win at 4:07.83.

>> The second day of the Telkom South African Short Course Championships, currently underway at the Strand Municipal Pool once again saw Melissa Corfe rewrite the record books per the official results and reports to SwimInfo from Neville Smith.
>>
>> Corfe, the Mr. Price Seagulls star, stole the thunder when she smashed the continental mark of Marizanne Grundling for the 400m freestyle by a massive 3.5 seconds when she posted an impressive 4:07,83.
>>
>> The men’s 100m IM was a treat, as expected, with Olympic gold medalist Ryk Neethling (Seals) who dominated proceedings much to the delight of the crowd when he posted an impressive 55.01 to go into Saturday night’s final as the top seed.
>>
>> Neethling’s time was a shade off Roland Schoeman’s continental mark of 54.55 and the odds
>> are pretty good that Ryk will attack this mark in the final.

>> Second seed, Swiss national Alain Tardin, booked his ticket to the FINA World Short Course Championships in Indianapolis during October with a solid 57.66.
>>
>> Neil Versveld (Seals) head the field in the 100m breaststroke after posting a time of 1:02,26 with the exciting 17 year old Thabang Moeketsane (Soweto) extremely impressive in his effort of 1:04,15. Moeketsane is currently based at the High Performance Center in Pretoria, a move that has proved to be inspirational and a credit to the Swimming South Africa development program. The swimming fraternity as a whole will closely monitor his efforts.
>>
>> Troyden Prinsloo (Kloof) secured the 800m freestyle title in a time f 7:54.22 in a race that he dominated from the gun. Still about 10 seconds off Ryk Neethling’s continental mark of 7:44.10 set in 2000, it is only a matter of time before the unassuming Prinsloo lays claim to that record.
>>
>> The battle for the minor placing was exciting with Byron de Waal (Mr. Price Seagulls) and Jasper Venter (Stingrays) matching each other stroke for stroke from the gun. It was Venter (8:16,26) who surged over the final lap to secure silver while de Waal (8:16,68) did well to hold off a fast finishing Riaan Schoeman (Seals) who looked good with his effort of 8:16,73.

>> The 14 year old Schoeman had a huge last 100m, working his turns well and eating into the lead of his more illustrious competitors. His effort will stand him in good stead and is a star in the making. He’s apparently setting some good background training in place to see if he can then develop the sprint explosiveness later as did another Schoeman, gold medal winner Roland.

Neethling was the winner in two 50 meter charges also. He won the freestyle at :21.98 (21.90 semis) and :24.36 in the two-length butterfly affair.

One of the finer men’s swims was the 200 backstroke by George DuRand, 21 Seals-FS, just over a second off his own African mark at 1:56.88.

For complete results of the day two finals, link to SwimInfo International Competition results at:
http://www.swiminfo.com/results/published/2868.asp

The meet concludes on Sunday.

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