South African swimmers Kat Swanepoel and Nathan Hendricks set new African records at the Paralympic Games in Paris on Tuesday.
Swanepoel swam in the S5 50m backstroke heats and later reported that she obtained her result despite a dislocated shoulder.
The Johannesburg swimmer was upgraded just before the Paralympics, so she will face significantly stiffer opposition in her races in Paris, having previously participated in the S4 group.
Her timing of 49.63 seconds did not qualify her for the evening final, but it did create a new continental record.
Silver last Thursday, GOLD today!@TeamUSA's Christie Raleigh-Crossley wins the women's 100m backstroke S9!
🥇 🇺🇸#Paralympics | #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/b6L49Mg1ZP
— Paralympic Games (@Paralympics) September 3, 2024
“It was just an amazing experience to be in that arena and representing our country,” she said after the race. “Unfortunately I’m not through to the finals but am super-proud to have finished the race despite dislocating my shoulder in the middle of the race.”
Meanwhile, Hendricks and Christian Sadie advanced to their respective finals.
Hendricks, 19, is competing in his first Paralympic Games and this was his fourth final from four events.
The Mpumalanga swimmer placed fourth in his morning SM13 200m individual medley heat in 2:18.36 and advanced to the final, where he set a new African record by finishing seventh in 2:17.15.
Describing the race, Hendricks said: “Going out on the fly I was thinking go with speed but don’t waste too much energy, then I turned for the back, did some underwaters, broke out and I was thinking control, control, don’t mess up your stroke or else you’re getting nowhere.
“Then there was the turn for breaststroke, control, control again because it’s not your favourite stroke right now, just control it because then you’ll get far in it.
“Then it’s turn for free and it’s like, now it’s guns blazing, no more control just go.
“I’m super happy. I gave my all in that last one so now it’s just the 100 breaststroke to go and see how I go there, hopefully five for five [finals] but we’ll see.”
Earlier in the evening, Sadie finished fifth in his S7 100m backstroke final in 1:13.03, taking almost two seconds off his heat time.
“Super happy, I’m an IM swimmer and a fly swimmer so it’s not something we’ve been training for,” he said after the race. “But it went really well so I’m super happy. I didn’t know how close I was, but apparently, my coach said it was close so I’m really happy, it was a good day.”
Sadie will be back in the pool on Wednesday morning for the heats of the S7 50m freestyle while Alani Ferreira will be in action in the S12 100m freestyle heats.
