Rio de Janeiro - A nervous demeanour from the day dissipated as Cameron van der Burgh won his second Olympic 100m breaststroke medal at the Rio Games on Sunday.
Van der Burgh may have not retained his title but it did not matter as he still managed to get on the podium, quite a difficult feat in the 100m breaststroke.
It was clear from the start that the gold would be out of reach as the world’s only sub-58 second man, Adam Peaty set a new global mark of the second time in two days.
The young Briton lead the field out turning with Van der Burgh trailing him by 0.63 seconds with Cody Miller of the United States in tow.
Peaty hit the wall in a breathtaking 57.13 seconds with Van der Burgh touching the wall in a time of 58.68s, just 0.22s off his personal best with Miller taking bronze in 58.87s.
“It is an amazing feeling, I am so super proud, to add a silver to the collection, to the gold, I can’t sound disappointed at all,” Van der Burgh said wearing a large smile.
“The Olympics is such a massive stage, I get goosebumps just walking out there again, you hear Chariots of Fire and you just want to get onto the podium again.
“It makes the whole four-year cycle worth it, and all the sacrifices as well.”
Peaty became the first man to dip under 58 seconds when he broke Van der Burgh’s record with a time of 57.92.
He has since dipped below that mark on four occasions - three times over the last two days.
The 21-year-old lay down the marker in Saturday afternoon's heats when he hit the wall in a new world record of 57.55 seconds.
Van der Burgh said he knew he would not be able to dip below 58 seconds and had to "play with what I have been given today".
“The real fight for me was to try and secure silver which we did so I am super stoked, silver is a nice colour as well,” Van der Burgh said.
Olympic gold medallist Chad le Clos qualified for his first final at the Rio Games where he admittedly wen out too fast over the first two laps.
Le Clos was well under world-record pace at the first turn with a split of 23.91s but conceded his lead to China’s Sun Yang on the third lap.
The South African had to settle for fifth place touching the wall in a time 1:45.94 which was good enough to see him into Monday’s final.
When he was told about his first-lap split, Le Clos said: “whoo, that’s fast, damn, I knew it was a bit too fast.”
Le Clos said the reason why he went out that fast was because he was still coming to grips with the freestyle event.
“I just want to get out there, it is always hard when you’ve got the best guys in the world and I am not really a great freestyler and they are going to ride me down the first 100m,” Le Clos said.
“It is definitely hurting a bit, I knew that and this morning was tiring as well. I just feel I need to pace it slightly better, it was slightly too fast.”
Le Clos will have his work cut out on Monday as he will have less than an hour to recover from the 200m freestyle final before his 200m butterfly semi-final.
Independent Media