The competition was tougher than anticipated – Team SA Swimming Coach Rocco Meiring

Team SA secured only one medal at the recent World Aquatics Championships in Doha. However, he maintains optimism that the team will bounce back at the upcoming pinnacle of the competition, the Olympic Games in Paris in July/August.

Meiring acknowledged to SABC Sport that the level of competition at the championships was exceedingly high, noting Pieter Coetze’s bronze in the men’s 200m backstroke, which contributed to SA finishing in 25th on the medal tally.

He also noted that the Olympic qualifying times are more difficult now compared to four years ago before the Games in Tokyo.  

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"Yeah, we should be worried because the level of competition at these World Championships in my opinion was higher than what I expected and what a lot of other international coaches expected as well but that's not new. In the world of international competition, the bar gets raised all the time and as I mentioned when one goes, there's two or three others ready to take their place and to raise the bar,” Meiring said.

“So, from a confidence point of view, we have to be confident that we can compete, there's no question about it and we've got nothing to not be confident about. But we also can't be ignorant about the fact that it's four years later or three years later after Tokyo, new people are there, the bar's been raised.

“The Olympic qualifying times are more difficult and we're going back into another battle into the unknown and we don't know what level the rest of the world will be competing."

Meiring refrains from making any definitive statements regarding the potential medal that Swimming SA could achieve at the Olympics.

Historically, swimming has been acknowledged as a sport that could secure medals for South Africa at the Games.  

"There's certainly no guarantees that we can give the South African public the medals, I will never say that and my athletes will never say that because there's no guarantee. You go in and you fight as hard as you can and you try as good as you can and you prepare as good as you can and you go in there and you try and do the country proud. We can't do more than that."