SA women's medley relay team look set to miss Paris Olympics by 0.21sec

When the final numbers are crunched to determine Olympic relay qualification, the South African women’s 4x100m medley outfit is likely to discover that they missed out by 0.21sec or a single spot.

They missed out on advancing to the evening finals at the world championships in Doha on Sunday morning, but the bigger prize at stake was a spot at the Paris Games later this year.

The squad of Milla Drakopoulos (backstroke), Lara van Niekerk (breaststroke), Erin Gallagher (butterfly) and Emma Chelius (freestyle) finished 10th overall in 4min 03.54sec.

Unlike for previous Olympics, where a few relay spots have been allotted to the fastest teams not qualifying at world championships, the system has changed for Paris 2024.

Only performances at the 2023 and 2024 world championships are being considered. The top three teams last year were automatic qualifiers, with the remaining 13 berths to be decided by the fastest times achieved at the two galas.

After Sunday’s heats, the 13th fastest time seemed to be the 4:03.33 clocked by Denmark in Fukuoka last year.

Two crucial performances on Sunday morning pushed South Africa into 14th spot — Hong Kong improved their time from 4:04.89 in Fukuoka to 4:02.34 in Doha, and Singapore, who had not featured in Fukuoka, edged South Africa with an effort of 4:02.88 in the same heat to rank ninth overall in the morning.

The South African record in this event is 4:01.92, set by Gallagher, Rebecca Meder, Tatjana Schoenmaker and Aimee Canny in 2021.

The men’s medley relay team of Pieter Coetzé, Matthew Randle, Chad Le Clos and Clayton Jimmie didn’t get close, ending 16th overall in 3:37.29. 

Matthew Sates, the only individual swimmer in action in the morning, was way off the mark in the 400m individual medley, finishing his heat in a distant 4min 25.04sec for an overall ranking of 17th.

The slowest qualifying time for Sunday’s final was 4:15.84.

Sates’ 4:11.58 best, set in 2022, would have been faster than the quickest morning effort, 4:12.51 by American David Johnston.

Coetzé and Van Niekerk are South Africa’s last remaining competitors in the evening, swimming silverware in the 50m backstroke and 50m breaststroke respectively.