The 2018 SA National Aquatic Championships and Youth Olympics Trials got off to a flying start with three of Mzansi\u2019s best posting qualification times at the opening day of the competition, taking place at the Newton Park Swimming Pool in Port Elizabeth.<\/p>\n
Western Cape\u2019s Michael Houlie<\/strong> became the first swimmer to add his name to the Youth Olympics Qualification list, as he concluded the 100m breaststroke semi-finals in second place, clocking 1:02.57 to the 1:03.70 requirement.<\/p>\n In the 100m backstroke, Mariella Venter<\/strong> also penciled her name for the 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0Youth Olympic Games in Argentina, winning her semi-final in 1:02.18, over a second ahead of the required 1:03.43, while Jacques van Wyk<\/strong> won his respective semi-final in 55.52 ahead of Martin Binedell<\/strong> in 57.01 and Jarryd Baxter<\/strong> in 58.37.<\/p>\n 17 year old Riccardo di Domenico<\/strong> posted a Youth Olympic qualification time in the semi-finals of the 50m butterfly, touching the wall in 25.00, beating out the 25.07 requirement, while on the ladies\u2019 side, Olivia Nel<\/strong> finished first in 28.42 ahead of Jana Coetze<\/strong> in 28.53 and Michaela de Villiers<\/strong> in 28.75.<\/p>\n Kaylene Corbett<\/strong> won her 100m breaststroke semi-final in 1:11.10 with Emily Visagie<\/strong> and Paige Brombacher<\/strong> a close second and third in 1:11.87 and 1:12.01, respectively.<\/p>\n In the 200m freestyle semi-finals, Kate Beavon<\/strong> finished top of the group with a time of 2:03.74 ahead of Abi Meder<\/strong> in 2:05.80 and Janie Coetzer<\/strong> in 2:06.64, while on the men\u2019s side, Brent Szurdoki<\/strong> was fastest in 1:52.31, followed by Baxter in 1:52.66 and Josh Stegen<\/strong> in 1:53.81. The final for both races will take place\u00a0tomorrow<\/span>.<\/p>\n In the multi-disability events, the 100m backstroke and 50m breaststroke gold medals went to Dylan Logan<\/strong> (S15) in 1:11.58 and 36.09 and Michaela Kretzen<\/strong> (S14) in 1:24.84 and 47.55, while in the 100m backstroke S1-13 category, the gold medals were claimed by Franco Smit<\/strong> (S13) in 1:09.11 and Katelyn Marais<\/strong> (S9) in 1:31.96 and the 50m breaststroke titles went to Johann van Heerden<\/strong> (SB9) in 31.67 and Shannon Martins<\/strong> (SB8) in 49.04.<\/p>\n The final teams for the Youth Olympic Games, the AUSC Region 5 U20 Youth Games and the African Youth Games will be selected by SASCOC, while Swimming SA will select the final team for the Senior Africa Swimming Championships.<\/p>\n The SA National Aquatic Championships will continue\u00a0tomorrow<\/span>\u00a0with the heats session starting at\u00a009:30<\/span>, while the finals will begin at\u00a018:00<\/span>\u00a0daily.<\/p>\n The staging of this event has been made possible through the support provided by Swimming SA partners, Sport and Recreation South Africa, SASCOC, National Lotteries Commission, Arena and Rand Water.<\/p>\n A Qualifying Times \u2013 Youth Olympic Games \u2013 Day 01:<\/strong><\/p>\n *SF \u2013 semi-final<\/strong><\/p>\n Press release courtesy of Swimming South Africa<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2018 SA National Aquatic Championships and Youth Olympics Trials got off to a flying start with three of Mzansi\u2019s best posting qualification times at the opening day of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":251219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[40364,67474,142,67475],"class_list":["post-307104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-port-elizabeth","tag-south-africa-national-aquatic-championships","tag-swimming","tag-youth-olympic-trials"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n\n