Chris Smith did everything asked of him as he finished sixth in a personal best time in the 50m breaststroke final at the world championships in Singapore on Wednesday.
At 19, he was the youngest in the field, but Smith touched in 26.75 sec — one-100th of a second behind fifth-placed German Melvin Imoudu and two-100ths behind Russian Ivan Kozhakin.
The Centurion-based Smith would have needed to go 26.67 to share bronze with 100m breaststroke champion Haiyang Qin of China.
To put that into perspective, Qin’s time equalled the sixth-fastest effort by SA’s former two-time world champion and multiple record-holder Cameron van der Burgh.
Then factor in how much room for improvement there is in Smith’s underwater work after the dive and it is clear he has huge potential and should be given full support in the build-up to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
There are comforting similarities to freshly-minted 100m backstroke world champion Pieter Coetzé, who also had to work on his underwater technique and possesses great natural speed on top of the water.
Italian Simone Cerasuolo won gold in 26.54 and 29-year-old Russian Kirill Prigoda took silver in 26.62.
Coetzé will be back in action in the 200m backstroke on Thursday, along with Erin Gallagher (100m freestyle), Kaylene Corbett (200m breaststroke) and the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.
Meanwhile, Matthew Sates extended his stay in swimming’s purgatory in Singapore after he failed to win a spot in the 200m individual medley semifinals on Wednesday.
The South African was once a hot prospect, tipped as the heir apparent to Chad le Clos.
In early 2022, he lifted a coveted NCAA title during a brief stint as a student in the US and the year before he won top male swimmer of the short-course World Cup series.
However, he has been off the boil for three years.
Sates raced in the final 200m individual medley heat on Wednesday, which contributed seven of the 16 semifinal contenders, topped by French Olympic superstar Leon Marchand, who clocked 1 min 57.63 sec.
However, the 22-year-old ended a distant ninth in 2:01.80, which ranked him 28th overall.
He was well outside the 1:57.43 SA record he set in May 2022.
World Student Games medallist Olivia Nel had to settle for sixth spot in her 50m backstroke heat on Wednesday, touching in 28.23.
The 27.91 personal best she clocked to secure bronze in the event at the Universiade eight days ago would have seen her into the night semifinals.
Even Coetzé was unable to match his golden 51.85 effort from Tuesday night in the mixed 4x100m medley relay heats, though his 53.01 was enough to give his teammates the lead.
However, that was quickly gobbled up as Corbett, a 200m specialist, was overhauled in the breaststroke leg where most of the other teams opted for men.
The biggest gap between men’s and women’s 100m world records is in the breaststroke, at 7.25 sec, some two seconds more than the others. Backstroke is 5.53, freestyle 5.31 and butterfly 5.15.
Statistically, Corbett never stood a chance.
Gallagher swam the third fly leg and Matthew Caldwell, a distance specialist, closed out the race on the freestyle leg with SA touching eighth in their heat and 18th overall in 3:52.03.
None of the four matched their personal bests, but even then it probably would not have got the team into the final.
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