{"id":623125,"date":"2025-09-26T14:09:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T21:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=623125"},"modified":"2025-09-26T14:09:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T21:09:25","slug":"jessica-thompson-ties-african-record-in-50-backstroke-at-south-african-champs-chad-le-clos-doubles-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/jessica-thompson-ties-african-record-in-50-backstroke-at-south-african-champs-chad-le-clos-doubles-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Thompson Ties African Record in 50 Backstroke at South African Champs; Chad le Clos Doubles Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessica Thompson Ties African Record in 50 Backstroke at South African Champs; Chad le Clos Doubles Again<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jessica Thompson<\/strong> stole the show on the second day of action at the Bombela Concession Company SA National (25m) Championships in Pietermaritzburg on Friday, breaking a national record and equaling the African mark held by Zimbabwe\u2019s new International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/u><\/u>The 18-year-old was disappointed to miss out on the SA record in the 50m butterfly on Thursday, but responded in the best way possible, setting a new mark in the 50m backstroke of 26.85. That saw her break the record that had been set by Chanelle van Wyk<\/strong> 16 years ago. Van Wyk was poolside to witness the achievement, providing the commentary for the television coverage of the championships.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so good, especially after last night. I think it was a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but I\u2019m really happy to have gotten it tonight and just getting that time is a really big deal for me,\u201d Thompson said.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the 50m backstroke title was claimed by Chad le Clos<\/strong>, who is rapidly reinventing himself as a backstroker. He powered to victory in 23.62, in a race he described as the main takeaway of his last two days of racing. <\/u><\/u>The former Olympic champion was back in more familiar territory just a few minutes later, also securing victory in the 100m butterfly in a time of 50.81.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel great. I think the backstroke was the highlight\u2026 It\u2019s weird, my backstroke and my freestyle were probably my better swims, not my butterflies,\u201d he said. <\/u><\/u>\u201cI want to try and keep going as long as I can and I think the 50s have given me a lot of life, especially short course. I know I will improve and I\u2019ve got a lot of big things coming\u2026 I think I\u2019m going to settle nicely into the new year, build toward April and then hopefully surprise everybody next year. That\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

The women\u2019s 100m butterfly produced a surprise champion in 16-year-old Abigail Kotze<\/strong>, who beat Olympian Dun\u00e9 Coetzee<\/strong> to the title in a time of 1:00.69.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Coetzee had earlier picked up victory in the 200m freestyle, winning in a time of 1:59.71, while it was Matthew Caldwell<\/strong> who took the men\u2019s title in 1:49.01.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

The 800m freestyle titles were decided earlier in the day, with Carli Antonopoulos<\/strong> thrilled to claim a first national short course title, winning in 8:53.28, while 17-year-old Stephan Engelbrecht<\/strong> took the win in the men\u2019s race with a time of 7:56.72.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

There were also first-time champions in both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s 400m individual medley with 18-year-old Keira van Heerden<\/strong> taking the women\u2019s title in 4:51.13 and Juan Boshoff<\/strong> the men\u2019s in 4:21.29, taking over two seconds off his previous personal best.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Thompson Ties African Record in 50 Backstroke at South African Champs; Chad le Clos Doubles Again Jessica Thompson stole the show on the second day of action at the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7533,"featured_media":623127,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[25134,135814],"class_list":["post-623125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-world","tag-chad-le-clos","tag-jessica-thompson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nJessica Thompson Ties African Record in 50 Backstroke<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jessica Thompson tied the African record in the 50-meter backstroke on the second day of the South African Championships.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/jessica-thompson-ties-african-record-in-50-backstroke-at-south-african-champs-chad-le-clos-doubles-again\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jessica Thompson Ties African Record in 50 Backstroke at South African Champs; 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