Schoeman sprints to butterfly gold
Brad Morgan
27 March 2007
Swimming sensation Roland Schoeman is known as Roland "Showman" by some commentators. In the final of the 50 metres butterfly at the Fina World Championships in Melbourne on Monday, Schoeman certainly put on a show to make South Africa's first medal of the championships a gold one.
The South African's reaction time at the gun was second fastest, but his powerful dive saw him pick up a half a body length advantage over his challengers by the time he emerged from beneath the water. From that point on the result was pretty much certain.
Comfortable victory
Schoeman went on to touch in 23.18 seconds, matching the time he recorded in the semi-finals. At Montreal in 2005, he won the same event in a world record 22.96 seconds.
The USA's Ian Crocker came home in second place in 23.47 seconds, with Denmark's Jakob Ankjaer finishing third in 23.56 to claim his country's first medal of the championships.
The 50
metres butterfly has been held at the last three World Swimming Championships only - in Barcelona, Montreal and now Melbourne. Schoeman and Crocker are the only two swimmers to make the final on all three occasions. Unfortunately for the American, he has finished second each time.
He joked afterwards that he is glad Schoeman is not as good in the 100 metres butterfly as he is in the 50 metres; Crocker is the world record holder in the 100 metres.
'That was one breath'
Talking about his swim, Schoeman said there was little in the way of tactics employed in the sprint race. "That was one breath," he said. "I'm a little out of breath now, but there were no tactics."
The South African's success in the 50 metres butterfly is fairly remarkable, as he admits that he hardly trains for it. If it were an Olympic event, he would surely be the favourite to land gold at Beijing in 2008.
Over the weekend, Schoeman missed out on his first shot
at a medal when the SA 4 by 100 metres freestyle relay team - Olympic champions in Athens in 2004 - narrowly missed out on a podium finish. Now, though, he has a gold medal to show for his efforts.
Aiming for more medals
He'll try to add to his gold in Melbourne, and his two golds and one silver from Montreal, on Wednesday when he competes in the 100 metres freestyle.
Then, on Friday, he'll be contesting the heats of the 50 metres freestyle title as he aims to defend his 2005 World Championship title.
His winning time two years ago of 21.69 seconds was the second fastest in history, just behind the 21.64 recorded by the legendary Russian, Alexander Popov.
A repeat of that performance should comfortably secure Schoeman a second successful defence of a world title.
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