Hendri Herbst adds Paralympic bronze

1 September 2012

Team South Africa’s Hendri Herbst claimed a bronze medal in the pool at the London Paralympic Games on Friday to add to the gold medal won by Natalie du Toit on Thursday.

Competing in the 100m freestyle S11 class, Herbst clocked 59.60 seconds to finish third behind the USA’s Bradley Snyder (57.43) and Bozun Yang (58.61).

They were the only three men to dip below the one-minute barrier in the race for blind swimmers. Spain’s Enhamed Enhamed, the winner of the S11 50m and 100m freestyle in the Beijing Paralympics, was fourth in 1:00.76.

Women’s S9 100m backstroke

Natalie du Toit, who has seven events on her schedule in London, contested the final of the S9 100m backstroke, an event she had not swum in two previous visits to the Paralympics. Emily Gray gave South Africa two finalists in the same race.

Australian Ellie Cole was a convincing winner of the gold medal in an Oceania record of 1:09.42. British swimmer Stephanie Milward placed second in 1:11.07 and the USA’s Elizabeth Stone took third in 1:12.28.

Du Toit, who was fifth at the turn, came home strongly, with a second 50m that was barely a second slower than her first 50m, in a time of 1:12.56 to finish fourth.

Gray was slower than she had been in the heats. Her qualifying time of 1:15.59 was just over a second faster than her 1:16.65 in the final, which left her in seventh place.

Men’s S13 100m butterfly

Charl Bouwer, the winner of a gold medal in the 400m freestyle in Beijing, was in action in the 100m butterfly in the S13 class.

He finished well out of the running in seventh place, with a time of 59.39. Ihar Boki of Belarus took the win in a Paralympic record of 55.50, with Russia’s Roman Dubovoy in second and the Australian Timothy Antalfy in third.

Renette Bloem swam an African record time of 1:25.72 in the heats of the S11 100m freestyle, but did not progress to the final, while Shireen Sapiro’s African record of 30.87 in the heats of the S10 50m freestyle was also not enough to take her through to the final.

Marike Naude failed to advance from the heats of the S13 women’s 50m freestyle.

Kevin Paul set another African record in the men’s S10 50m freestyle, but his time of 25.49 didn’t secure him a place in the final.

Unsuccessful defence

Fanie van der Merwe was unsuccessful in the defence of his 200 metres title in the T37 class after he lost his balance. The world record holder in the event, Van der Merwe led rounding the bend, but after suffering a speed wobble finished in sixth place in 23.79 seconds.

Russia’s Roman Kapranov claimed victory in 23.10, which equalled Van der Merwe’s world record, while there were regional records for second placed Guangxu Shang of China and Omar Monterola of Venezuela.

Anrune Liebenberg qualified for the final of the women’s 200m T45 classification with an African record time of 25.79 seconds, which was the second fastest time in the heats.

Chenelle van Zyl finished sixth in the women’s discus F35/36, which was decided on a controversial points system.

Basketball

After being drubbed 93-39 by defending champions, Australia, in their first outing, the South African men’s basketball team produced a far more competitive showing second time out, but were again beaten, going down 74-50 against Spain.

At Eton Dornay, where South African Olympians claimed gold and bronze, Sandra Khumalo went through to the repechage of the women’s single scull ASW1x after finishing fifth in her heat.

On the cycling track, Jaco van Zyl placed tenth in the men’s C2 individual pursuit in a time of 4:12.794.

Medal table

By the end of Friday’s competition, South Africa shared 19th place on the medal table with Cuba, Denmark, and the Republic of Korea.

China leads the way with 13 gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze medals for a total of 34 medals in all. Australia (7,4,8,19) is in second place, with Ukraine (6, 5, 5, 16) in third.

The hosts, Great Britain, are in fifth place. Their total of 20 medals is second to only the Chinese.