{"id":623165,"date":"2025-09-27T13:04:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T20:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=623165"},"modified":"2025-09-27T13:04:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T20:04:20","slug":"jessica-thompson-lara-van-niekerk-shine-at-south-african-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/jessica-thompson-lara-van-niekerk-shine-at-south-african-championships\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Thompson, Lara van Niekerk Shine at South African Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessica Thompson, Lara van Niekerk Shine at South African Championships<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jessica Thompson<\/strong> added two more gold medals to her haul as Lara van Niekerk<\/strong> showed glimpses of her old self on Day Three of the Bombela Concession Company SA National (25m) Championships in Pietermaritzburg on Saturday.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Thompson has already collected three national titles at these championships and added two more on Saturday, in the 50m freestyle, which she won in 24.19, just five hundredths of a second off the national record, and the 100m backstroke in 58.34.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cI think in the 50, you don\u2019t have time to think \u2013 that\u2019s the beauty about the races. It\u2019s more just trusting in your training and you can\u2019t think about it \u2013 your body goes into autopilot,\u201d Thompson said.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, after a year of battling back from injury, illness and numerous disappointments, Van Niekerk looked to be in a much happier place as she added the 50m breaststroke title to the 100m gold she won on the opening day of competition. The 22-year-old took the win in a time of 30.04 and while she was hoping for a sub-30-second time, she said: \u201cI can just take this as a positive. It\u2019s faster than I went at worlds last year, so it\u2019s baby steps. Rome wasn\u2019t built in a day, so we\u2019re getting there.\u201d<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

As for the mental aspect, the double Commonwealth Games champion added: \u201cI\u2019ve just got back to why I started swimming in the beginning and I\u2019m really enjoying it again. I love going to training every day and at least I\u2019m enjoying racing again. There was a stage last year where I was scared of racing, so it\u2019s good. It means I\u2019m improving as a person and I\u2019m getting back there.\u201d<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Chris Smith<\/strong> took the men\u2019s 50m breaststroke title in 26.31, but said afterwards, he wasn\u2019t expecting too much more from himself in terms of the time.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was good, especially for this time of year. It\u2019s a bit more than half a second away from my personal best time, but overall I\u2019m happy,\u201d he said afterwards.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

In the absence of Chad le Clos, Tai Pearson finally got his hands on two gold medals on Saturday \u2013 in the 100m backstroke and 200m individual medley. He took the win in the 100m backstroke in 53.29 and followed that up with the 200 IM gold in 2:01.49.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Dun\u00e9 Coetzee<\/strong> returned to winning ways in the 400m freestyle, winning in a time of 4:11.38.\u00a0 <\/u><\/u>The men\u2019s 400m freestyle title went to Matthew Caldwell<\/strong>, who won in 3:48.47.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Keira van Heerden<\/strong> made a return to the podium, completing an individual medley double, adding to her 400m IM gold by holding off a fast-finishing Georgia Els to win the 200m event in 2:14.79.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

And there was a first-ever national title for Armand Landmann<\/strong>, who won the 50m freestyle in 22.09.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Thompson, Lara van Niekerk Shine at South African Championships Jessica Thompson added two more gold medals to her haul as Lara van Niekerk showed glimpses of her old self<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7533,"featured_media":527149,"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":[135814,67528],"class_list":["post-623165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-world","tag-jessica-thompson","tag-lara-van-niekerk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nJessica Thompson, Lara van Niekerk Star at South African Champs<\/title>\r\n<meta 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