Catherine van Rensburg dominated the 5km race for a solo victory at the SA Open Water Championships at Marina Martinique in Jeffreys Bay on Sunday, 6 March 2022.
Van Rensburg powered ahead of the pack in 1:01:12.01 – over a minute ahead of her rivals to claim the win.
The teammate who beat her to 10km gold two days earlier, Amica de Jager, finished in second in 1:02:12.81, with 3km champion Samantha Randle third in 1:02:18.25.
“I felt great from the start. I decided to push it and then I saw nobody wanted to come with me so I just pushed and saw how big I could make the gap,” said van Rensburg after the race.
“I was just making sure I made the gap bigger and bigger… I was hoping Amica was going to come with me so I could slip[stream] her but it didn’t happen, so I just went for it,” added the 18-year-old.
De Jager was thrilled for her training partner.
“Catherine took it out super hard today and she had such an incredible swim so I’m happy for her,” said the TUKS swimmer.
“The rest of us were just trying to chase her down but it was not to be today. We got caught up a bit in the pack dynamics at the start – it was quite hectic, but Catherine got an awesome break, and she just went for it which is amazing.
“We’re teammates, we train together so it was great to have that little switch-around [for first and second positions in the 10km and the 5km] so it’s going to be so exciting to be able to go to world championships with her,” de Jager concluded.
Photo 1 Caption: Catherine van Rensburg dominated the 5km race for a solo victory at the SA Open Water Championships at Marina Martinique in Jeffreys Bay on Sunday, 6 March 2022. Photo: Nonda Sakelliou
With editing by gsport
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