19-year-old Matt Sates is already flying the South African flag high this week by earning himself a gold medal and breaking his own African record.
Melbourne, Australia (14 December 2022) – The 16th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) have started in Australia and South Africa’s Matthew “Matt” Sates has earned his first gold for the 200m individual medley and broke his own African record.
The World Short Course Championships, as it is also known, started yesterday the 13th of December and runs until the 18th of December 2022.
Sates finished with a time of 1:50.15, ending his medley swim on freestyle. He started strong on a butterfly but dropped to third on his backstroke lap, thankfully he is a powerful freestyle swimmer and was able to fight his way back to first on the final lap.
In the process of winning the first gold for Team SA, Sates also broke his own African record and went on to become the second fastest short course 200m IM swimmer in history.
This gold currently has South Africa at 4th on the medal table. You can follow the count here.
Joining Sates in representing South Africa, is a whole host of talented swimmers.
- Pieter Coetze
- Caitlin De Lange
- Milla Drakopoulos
- Simon Haddon
- Stephanie Houtman
- Clayton Jimmie
- Kian Keylock
- Chad Le Clos
- Rebeccan Meder
- Hannah Pearse
- Dakota Tucker
- Lara Van Niekerk
- Emily Visagie
You can follow Team South Africa and Swimming South Africa for updates on how our athletes do throughout the championship.
by 