Veteran Chad le Clos will make a return to national competition at this week’s Bombela Concession Company SA National (25m) Championships at the GC Jolliffe Swimming Pool in Pietermaritzburg.
The 33-year-old former Olympic champion has taken an extended break from competition to recover from a back injury, but will line up KwaZulu-Natal in preparation for one of the World Cup series meets in Carmel, Indiana. The next big target is then the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
“My back is feeling good… feeling great. I’m going to be heading to the World Cup afterwards, probably just swimming one leg, we'll see how we go,” said Le Clos.
“I raced a couple of weeks ago in Cape Town… So we'll see if we can build on that and then build for a big Commonwealth next year, big trials next year. By then we'll have a good squad up and running and it’s going to be very exciting, I can't wait.”
Le Clos will compete in the 100m freestyle, and the 50m and 100m butterfly at the short course championships, as well as making an unusual foray into backstroke racing, taking on the 50m event.,
“I'll see how those go, and then at the World Cup I'll just kind of see where I'm at with everything,” he added.
Also among those lining up in Pietermaritzburg this week will be newly crowned world junior champion in the 200m butterfly, Kris Mihaylov, and Jessica Thompson, who just missed out on a medal by two hundredths of a second in the 50m backstroke at the same event in Romania.
For Thompson, the SA short course championships are the most exciting of the national events, thanks to the added turns and underwater skills required.
“It's just it's so much more exciting because anyone can pull anything out of the bag,” she said.
“You want to swim as many national competitions as possible and just get the experience you need and keep working on your skills, keep refining them and seeing what you need to fix,” added the 18-year-old who will be competing in the 50m butterfly, backstroke and freestyle and the 100m freestyle and backstroke this week.
Asked what her goal is in the KZN capital, Thompson reckoned: “Hopefully get some PBs and just have fun with it, just enjoy swimming again, take the pressure off and just be there.”
Also in the mix this week are sprint breaststrokers, Chris Smith, who reached his first long course world championships final in Singapore this year and Lara van Niekerk – the double Commonwealth Games gold medallist in 2022 who is still on the comeback trail from serious injury.
The championships will run from 25-28 September with morning heats kicking off at 8:30am and evening finals at 5pm.