31-07-2025
Chris Smith shows his potential as he ends sixth in 50m breaststroke final
Chris Smith did everything asked of him as he finished sixth in a personal best time in the 50m breaststroke final at the world championships in Singapore on Wednesday night.
At 19 he was the youngest in the field, but Smith touched in 26.75sec — one-100th of a second behind fifth-placed German Melvin Imoudu and two-100ths behind Russian Ivan Kozhakin.
The Centurion-based Smith would have needed to go 26.67 to share bronze with 100m breaststroke champion Haiyang Qin of China.
To put that into perspective, Qin's time equalled the sixth-fastest effort by South Africa's former two-time world champion and multiple record-holder Cameron van der Burgh.
Then factor in how much room for improvement there is in Smith's underwater work after the dive and it's clear he has huge potential and should be given full support in the build-up to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
There are comforting similarities to freshly-minted 100m backstroke world champion Pieter Coetzé, who also had to work on his underwater technique and possesses great natural speed on top of the water.
