The country’s elite swimmers gathered in Port Elizabeth last week for 6 days, at the Swimming South Africa Senior National Championships. This was indeed a special championship and was a qualifying event for the Paris 2024 showpiece taking place in July and August of this year.
Of course, among them is our own 20-year-old Matt Sates, who looks in pretty good shape and from his own high standards did not have the best performance at the World Championship in Doha. Two weeks ago, visiting Matt at the High-Performance Centre, at the University of Pretoria and just watching him train, it seemed that he was on course for an exciting championship.
This turned out to be the event for the young guns, with Matt taking silver in the 50m Butterfly, then a hard-fought battle with birthday boy Chad le Clos which saw both athletes achieving gold in the 100m Butterfly, with Sates turning first at the 50m mark and both finishing with a time 52.07. It was a very exciting tied finish for the fans at the pool. At the medal presentation, Le Clos gave all credit to Matt, saying: “He really made me dig deep”, and stating that both athletes are looking forward to tough competitions at the Olympic Games.
Matt went further and raced to his fourth gold medal in the 200m Individual Medley, to add to his 200m Freestyle and 200m Butterfly titles, and of course the dramatic tied finish for gold in the 100m Butterfly.
The Team at TRA wish Matt well in his preparation for the Paris Olympic Games.
Image credit: South African Sports Images https://www.facebook.com/antongeyserphotography
