South Africa’s Kat Swanepoel and Nathan Hendricks both swam to new African records at the Paralympic Games in Paris on Tuesday.
Swanepoel competed in the S5 50m backstroke heats and revealed afterwards, she’d achieved her result with a dislocated shoulder.
The Johannesburg swimmer was classed up just before the Paralympics, meaning she is facing much tougher competition in her events in Paris, having previously competed in the S4 category. While her time of 49.63 seconds was not quick enough to progress to the evening final, it did see her setting the new continental mark.
“It was just an amazing experience to be in that arena and representing our country,” she said after the race. “Unfortunately I’m not through to the finals but am super-proud to have finished the race despite dislocating my shoulder in the middle of the race.”
Meanwhile, making their way through to their respective finals were both Hendricks and Christian Sadie.
This was a fourth final from four events for 19-year-old Hendricks who is competing at his first Paralympic Games.
The Mpumalanga swimmer finished fourth in his morning SM13 200m individual medley heat in 2:18.36 to progress to the final where he set the new African record by finishing seventh in 2:17.15.
Describing the race, Hendricks said: “Going out on the fly I was thinking go with speed but don't waste too much energy, then I turned for the back, did some underwaters, broke out and I was thinking control, control, don't mess up your stroke or else you’re getting nowhere.
“Then there was the turn for breaststroke, control, control again because it's not your favourite stroke right now, just control it because then you'll get far in it.
“Then it's turn for free and it's like, now it's guns blazing, no more control just go.
“I'm super happy. I gave my all in that last one so now it's just the 100 breaststroke to go and see how I go there, hopefully five for five [finals] but we'll see.”
Earlier in the evening, Sadie finished fifth in his S7 100m backstroke final in 1:13.03, taking almost two seconds off his heat time.
“Super happy, I’m an IM swimmer and a fly swimmer so it's not something we've been training for,” he said after the race. “But it went really well so I'm super happy. I didn't know how close I was, but apparently, my coach said it was close so I'm really happy, it was a good day.”
Sadie will be back in the pool on Wednesday morning for the heats of the S7 50m freestyle while Alani Ferreira will be in action in the S12 100m freestyle heats.
Photo credits: Roger Sedres/TeamSA
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