4th place SA's best to date

2008-08-12 17:35

Beijing - Jean Basson's fourth place in Tuesday morning's 200m freestyle provided Team South Africa with their best result of the Beijing Olympics to date in a race won in world record time by America' s Michael Phelps.

Basson moved through from seventh to fourth to be adjacent to Peter Vanderkaay in the hope of passing him in the final 50 metres. Visibly throwing everything at it in the final quarter Basson was unable to out-stroke the American who took third in 1:45.14.

Basson's 1:45.97 was only 0.12 seconds off his best time set in Durban in April. "I gave it my all....there was nothing left in the tank," said Basson. "It' s cool for me that this is my first major international final and I came fourth in the Olympics.It motivates me to go back to Arizona, train harder on my start and turns then I can come back next time and grab a medal."

Phelps's winning time of 1;42.96 secured his third gold and third world record final of the Games.

In the day's (Tuesday) evening session Athens gold medallist, Lyndon Ferns, safely negotiated his way through the 100m freestyle heat with a time of 48.26 seconds. Ferns finished third behind former world record holder Alain Bernard and ninth overall heading into Wednesday's semi-final.

Never in the race

Ryk Neethling crashed out of the previous heat after only managing a swim of 49.28 seconds to finish last. It was his second disappointment of the Games in as many days after he and his teammates finished seventh in the 4x100m freestyle relay on Monday.

This was Neethling's last opportunity here to bag an individual Olympic medal and something he was striving for at his fourth Games. But he was simply never in the race and admitted afterwards: "There' s nothing I could have done more or better or focused more or anything. That's all I had today and that's the way it goes."

Kathryn Meaklim set a new national and continental mark of 2:09.41 in the 200m butterfly to put her into Wednesday's semi-final.

"It was more than two seconds off my best time so I'm really happy," said Meaklin. "My coach and I have been working really hard and obviously it's starting to pay off."

Six other South Africans put in record-breaking performances. Both William Diering and Neil Versveld dipped under the national and continental 200m breaststroke record to progress to Wednesday's semi-final.

Swimming in the same heat, Diering just edged ahead of his countryman to finish third in 2:10.39 while Versveld finished in 2:10.50.

Close race

"I tried to take it out quite hard because people have been taking it out quite fast here so I didn' t want to fall behind," explained Diering. "I did get a bit tired in the second hundred but I managed to hold on at least. It was a close race there between Neil and I. It's going to be another close race tomorrow again," he added.

"The atmosphere is incredible. There' s no way you can swim slowly in this place," was Versveld's first reaction.

South Africa's other record breakers for the night were the men's 4x200m freestyle relay team who took a five-second chunk out of their national and continental mark set at the Olympic trials earlier this year. Jean Basson, Darian Townsend, Jasper Venter and Sebastien Rousseau swam 7:10.91 to finish fourth in their heat behind the USA' s Olympic record of 7:04.66 to book their spot on the starting blocks in Wednesday's final.

In the Tennis Kevin Anderson lost an exciting second round match to 15th seeded German, Nicolas Kiefer. Anderson got off to a promising start breaking serve on the first game, but a resurgent Keifer came back to win the set 6-4.

Anderson won the tie break in the second set with Keifer scoring four points, but the German went on to take the third set and match, 6-4, breaking serve in the ninth game. Keifer called for four time-outs during the match which lasted three hours 20 minutes, upsetting the rhythm of play.

Double scull crew

"I would like to think that it wasn't gamesmanship and it was for genuine reasons," said Anderson. "I was surprised he only broke me once and I think it went quite well."

South Africa's lightweight double scull crew will compete in Saturday's C final having finished outside the top three in Tuesday's first round of repechage behind USA, Finland and Japan. Finland led through 500m ahead of the US second with Alex White and Kirsten McCann in third.

Japan's more conservative start paid benefits in the middle kilometre where South Africans ran out of power, fading to finish 25.82 seconds off the pace in seven minutes 48.04 seconds.

"I was happy with the race, the tactics were to try and rattle the Japan team by going off fast but they (White and McCann) just couldn't match the power," said team coach Roger Burrows. "This has been great experience for Kirsten, she has grown substantially this week."

"I want to win the C Final, then the B in 2012, and then aim for a place in A final in 2016," said McCann who at 19 has many years to achieve her goals.

Although more evenly matched than on Sunday against Germany, the beach volleyball pairing of Judith Augoustides and Vitalina Nel lost the second of their pool matches 2-0 to the Efthalia Koutroumandiou and Maria Tsiartsiani. The Greek combination took 19 minutes to win the first set 21-12, and completed the job 15 minutes later taking the second set 21-8.

"We played so well we didn't leave a big space for them," said Koutroumandiou, "we are very satisfied with our performance."

" It's tough for us playing in a tough pool with tough team, but that's what you have to expect scraping in to the Olympics as a low ranked team," admitted Augoustides.

The South Africans face China in the last of the Pool matches on Thursday.

Chauke had nothing to answer

Field goals from China in the sixth, 33rd and 40th minutes saw South African women' s hockey lose their second match in the A pool. "It was really tough playing against China. Their counter attacks are just lethal and they are fast. I think its difficult for any team to catch up with them," said midfielder Kate Hector. South Africa, who prop up the pool with a nine point goal deficit, have their next game against Australia on Thursday.

Tajikistan' s Anvar Yunusov put paid to flyweight Jackson Chauke on a points score of nine points to one which he scored in the second round. Tembisa-based Chauke had nothing to answer the south-paw and announced the end of his amateur career after the fight. "This is the end of my career, although it wasn't a good fight. I went through a lot of pain. It's the end of amateur boxing...I' m going to turn professional."

American's Howard Bach and Bob Malaythong beat Chris and Roelof Dednam in their first round doubles match 21-10 and 21-16, to end the badminton-playing Bloemfontein brothers' Olympic dreams.

The track and field squad join Team South Africa from Korea on Wednesday and there is hope that they can play a cavalry-role in saving the day with some medals. The main contenders will be Mbulaeni Mulaudzi in the 800m, and LJ van Zyl in the 400m Hurdles, but there are others who could perhaps pull something special out of the box, particularly in the less predictable field events.

Among those are Khotso Mokoena, the current world indoor long jump champion, and javelin thrower Robert Oosthuizen, who seems competitively wise beyond his years. The youngster from Bloemfontein is unlikely to be overawed with the occasion and may cause an upset of the formbooks.

- SAPA