Lara van Niekerk came close to adding to South Africa's medal tally at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha on Sunday night, February 18, 2024.
Van Niekerk won the bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest with a time of 29.90 seconds, but she also won the bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke at last year's Fukuoka Games, where Lithuania's Ruta Meirtite set the current world record. He finished in 4th place, just one step away from the podium.
The 50m breaststroke is not on the Olympic program, so Van Niekerk will focus on longer events ahead of the Paris Games.
Earlier in the day, the women's 4x100m medley relay team of Mila Dracopoulos, Van Niekerk, Erin Gallagher and Emma Chellius finished sixth in the morning heats with a time of 4:03.54 and advanced to the evening finals. I missed out on advancing.
The World Aquatics Championships concluded on Sunday night with South Africa tied for 25th in the swimming medal standings with male teammate Peter Coetzee taking bronze.
photo caption: The SA team returned home from the World Aquatics Championships in Doha without a medal for its female swimmers, setting a bar for expectations as the country's elite athletes fine-tune their Olympic preparation programs to peak at the right time. photograph: Anton Gajser/SA Sports Images