USSA News First gold medal for SA at 2019 Student Games NAPOLI, ITALY – Team South Africa has claimed gold at the Games in what was a scintillating swimming performance by Taylor Lovemore, who won gold in the women’s 50m butterfly, in her debut Universiade. The Florida University student, Lovemore, came into the race with a third place semi-final time of 26.60 seconds behind Japan’s Soma Ai (26.55) of Chukyo University and Korea’s Park Yerin (26.57) of Dankook University. This meant that Soma Ai was the favourite to win, going into the finals, but the margin between first and third place was so small that any of the three swimmers could win. After a good warm-up session, the eight finalists were moments away from taking each other on in what would be a highly competitive race. With the swimmers in the set position, the buzzer sounded and they were off. Taylor was quick off the blocks, to take an early lead in the race. She held her pace with no sign of slacking, and with only 10 metres to go, it was clear that it’s in the bag. It was expected to be a close race and it was. Team South Africa took the first medal of the World Student Games and it was gold; the winning time, 26.25 seconds. Two other finals that took place were the men’s 100m backstroke and men’s 100m breaststroke. University of Alabama’s, Zane Waddell, competed valiantly in the backstroke to take fourth place in a time of 53.87 seconds. He got off the blocks quickly, taking the lead from the start, right up to the 150m mark. With 50m to go, his competitors began to catch up to him and eventually edged him at the end. Houlie Michael James, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, had a similar race as that of Waddell. He too was quick off the blocks, putting himself in a good position to win the 100m breaststroke. With 50m to go, he began slowing down a little, leaving a door open for his opposition to catch up and pass him towards the end. Houlie clocked 59.92 seconds. In her semi-final race, the double gold medallist at the 2018 Gold Coast XXI Commonwealth Games, Kaylene Corbett (University of Pretoria), took sixth place in the women’s 100m breaststroke in a time of 1:08.75. The final race of the night was the women’s 100m breaststroke semi-final. Tatjana Rens Schoenmaker, University of Pretoria student and Team South Africa flag-bearer for the Napoli 2019 Universiade, put on a scintillating performance to win her race in 1:06.32. She crushed her opposition, beating Japan’s Kanako Watanabe, who finished in 1:07.15, by a metre and a half. The third spot went to Great Britain’s Marie Sarah Vasey, who clocked a time of 1:07.84. Schoenmaker heads into the finals as a massive favourite. With Team South Africa’s goal set at 8 medals for this year’s competition, the athletes are on their way to racking up medals and possibly surpassing the target. Posted by Vusi Zwane (USSA Communications Officer) on 2019-07-06. Source: