Rebecca Meder broke her own South African 200m individual medley record at the national trials in Gqeberha on Thursday evening, leading a clutch of automatic world qualifying times on the day.
Meder and Matthew Sates both booked their spots for the global gala to be held in Singapore from July to August, joining Pieter Coetzé on the team list.
Coetzé achieved his second qualifier of the championships as he won the 50m backstroke to add to his 100m backstroke crown from Wednesday.
He did it twice on the day, going 24.56sec in the morning heats and then slowing slightly to 24.78 in the evening final.
Meder led the 200m IM from the start and by the end of the second backstroke leg she was already a body length up on second-placed Aimee Canny.
The 22-year-old, who grew up in Cape Town before moving to Durban and then following coach Graham Hill to New Zealand, powered to victory in 2min 10.39sec, inside the 2:10.67 mark she set at the Paris Olympics last year.
She was comfortably inside 2:12.83 qualifying standard for Singapore. Canny was second in 2:16.05 with Georgia Nel, daughter of former swimming great Annette Cowley, third in 2:19.53.
Not long afterwards Sates joined Meder as he dominated the men’s 200m IM, winning in 1:58.83, more than five seconds ahead of second-placed Kian Keylock in 2:04.34.
Sates, back in action at the end of the evening programme, won the men’s 200m butterfly final, holding off Kris Mihaylov to win in 1:57.71.
Dune Coetzee, the 200m freestyle champion, took the women’s 200m butterfly in 2:14.74. Michaela de Villiers finished first in a hard-fought women’s 50m backstroke, winning in 28.25, three-hundredths of a second outside the qualifying standard.
Jessica Thompson was second in 28.29 and Olivia Nel, Georgia’s twin, third in 28.42.
Catherine van Rensburg won the women’s 1,500m freestyle in 16:39.99 and Matthew Caldwell took the men’s race in 15:37.17.
The gala ends on Sunday. — TimesLIVE
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