Roets eyes a record Africa mark

Equalling a national mark was just not enough for Johannesburg teenager Lauren Roets.

Competing on the second day of the Telkom SA Short Course Championships in Pietermaritzburg, the 17-year-old swimmer decided to make the SA 50m freestyle record her own.

And then, just to make sure, Roets bettered the mark not once, but twice on Friday. Having equalled Christy Cech's 2002 time of 25.56 in the morning heats, Roets went on to shatter the record in the afternoon quarter-final with a time of 25.34 - and then took a further .14 of a second off when she swam a speedy 25.20 in the evening semi-final.

With the final still to come on Saturday, it seems as if Roets might also be eyeing the six-year-old African record of 25.14, which currently belongs to Rania Elwany of Egypt.

“I was dead on the record this morning so I was just hoping to go better than that and then the pressure would be off for the rest of the gala,” said Roets, who also bagged the 100m freestyle title on Friday in 55.59, ahead of Marielle Rogers (56.89).

“I was hoping to go quicker in the 100m but it was a bit tough straight after the 50m.

“And I did a 55 low, so I was happy with that,” said the sprinter, who later also added a national 4x50m freestyle relay record to her collection.

That was after she and Dolphins team-mates Megan Scott, Mandy Loots and Claire Archibald took three seconds off the previous mark when finishing in 1:43,63.

- Two other teenagers featured on Friday yesterday with world championship finalist Suzaan van Biljon and Melissa Corfe collecting two golds each.

Van Biljon bagged the 50m and 200m breaststroke titles by just beating Archibald to the wall on both occasions, while Corfe took her titles in the 100m backstroke (1:02.68) and the 400m freestyle (4:11.18).

“I didn't know what to expect because I'm not tapered or anything, but it felt good,” said the determined Van Biljon after her 200m breaststroke victory in 2:27.70.

“With the 50m, it's always anyone's race, so I'm happy.”

- George du Rand added a second and third gold to his haul, winning the 100m butterfly in 53.27 and comfort-ably taking the 200m backstroke gold in 1:55.87.

After yet another mix-up at the start for Terence Parkin, when the flashing light the deaf swimmer relies on at the start malfunctioned, the Sydney silver medallist swam 28.15 to take the 50m breaststroke title ahead of Donaven van der Merwe, who finished in 28.41.

In the men's 800m freestyle, Troyden Prinsloo dominated from start to finish and eventually won by a margin of 12 seconds in a time of 7:59.05 with Morne Boshoff second in 8:11.03.