Rebecca Meder wrapped up her World Aquatics Swimming World Cup campaign with another bronze medal at the third and final leg of the series in Toronto, Canada over the weekend.
That brought the 23-year-old from KwaZulu-Natal’s total tally to four bronze medals from the three stops.
On Saturday, she produced a strong final 25m to claim third in the 100m breaststroke in Toronto in a time of 1 minute 04.48, just one hundredth of a second ahead of fourth-placed Satomi Suzuki of Japan. The race was won by overall series champion Kate Douglass of the USA in 1:02.93, with Ireland’s Mona McSharry second in 1:03.84
Meder’s other results in Toronto included a fourth place in the 200m breaststroke in 2:18.81, a fifth place in the 200m individual medley in 2:05.83 and sixth place in the 100m individual medley in 58.81 seconds.
That saw her finishing 16th overall in the series.
Speaking afterwards, Meder said she was “very happy” with her performances over the last few weeks.
“I’m really happy to see that I'm becoming more and more competitive against the world's best, and nice to see that I'm racing in events that are stacked with the swimmers that I normally race against,” she said of coming up against the likes of Olympic champion Douglass and world champion sisters Alex and Gretchen Walsh.
After featuring in just one of the three World Cup legs last season, Meder returned this year to contest all three stops.
“Just to be able to do back-to-back racing like that at this level is a first for me. Three legs, you definitely feel it by the third leg, mentally, emotionally, and physically, but it's just made me so hungry to do it again, and to go and compete against these girls more and more,” she explained.
While the World Cup series is raced in 25m pools (short course), Meder will now switch focus to next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, raced over 50m, where she will be eyeing more podium finishes.
“Up next, the biggest focus is Commonwealth Games next year, of which lots of my competitors, competitors that I was racing now, will be at. So I'm looking forward to racing them again,” she said.
“I obviously wanted to be faster in the last [World Cup] stop and wanted to see if I could break my African record again [in the 200m individual medley], and try and chase that 200 breaststroke time and get that under the 2:18 mark.
“But I’m just super stoked that I was consistent through all three stops, and it just shows that my training has been working, all the hard work that I've been putting in. And to be consistently competitive at that level, is definitely a strength that I can take forward into a world champs and into a Commonwealth Games. So all in all, a good racing and training block done and dusted, and I’m super happy with the results.”