{"id":12913,"date":"2012-07-30T01:44:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-29T23:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/olympics-swimming-van-der-burgh-ends-south-african-mens-gold-drought\/"},"modified":"2012-07-30T01:44:46","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T23:44:46","slug":"olympics-swimming-van-der-burgh-ends-south-african-mens-gold-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/olympics-swimming-van-der-burgh-ends-south-african-mens-gold-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympics-Swimming-Van der Burgh ends South African men’s gold drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

By Clara Ferreira-Marques<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

LONDON, July 29<\/span> (Reuters) – South African Cameron Van der
\nBurgh, struggling to contain his emotions, shook his finger in
\ndisbelief at the screen above the pool as it flashed his 100
\nmetres breaststroke world record and his country’s first gold of
\nthe 2012 Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Van der Burgh became the first South African
\nman to win Olympic gold in an individual swimming event, after
\nhe powered through a race that left champion Kosuke Kitajima and
\nprevious record holder Brenton Rickard trailing in his wake.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

He set a world record of 58.46 seconds on Sunday, beating
\nthe 58.58 set by Brenton Rickard in 2009. It also eclipsed the
\nOlympic record of 58.83 he set in his semi-final on Saturday.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“Tonight, as I came in, I said to myself, ‘a man can change
\nhis stars, you can write your own destiny tonight’. I had my
\nchance and I took it,” he said, after a victory that saw him lie
\nback in the pool in sheer exhilaration at the finish.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Van der Burgh later said he was looking up at the sky –
\nremembering Norwegian rival and world champion Alexander Dale
\nOen, who died earlier this year of a heart attack.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“I know that he was probably laughing down at me, thinking
\n‘how can you go that time?'”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Van der Burgh’s victory ends a medal drought for South
\nAfrican swimming, after the team failed to win a single medal at
\nthe Beijing Games in 2008, a disappointment after Athens when an
\n“awesome foursome” won gold in the 4×100 freestyle relay,
\nfollowed by an individual silver and bronze from Roland
\nSchoeman.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Clara Ferreira-Marques LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) – South African Cameron Van der Burgh, struggling to contain his emotions, shook his finger in disbelief at the screen above the pool as it flashed his 100 metres breaststroke world record and his country’s first gold of the 2012 Olympic Games. The 24-year-old Van der Burgh became […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}