South African swimmer Cameron van der Burgh earned the country’s first medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night, with a silver medal in the 100m breaststroke final.
The gold medallist from London 2012 was aware that it would have taken a mighty effort to beat Adam Peaty in his event, as the British swimmer had dominated this stroke throughout the year and managed a world record time in the heats to qualify for the semi-final.
Peaty then narrowly missed setting another best time in the semi-final before again achieving a world record time of 57.13 in the final of the event to win a deserved gold.
Van Der Burgh was not far behind, grabbing silver with an excellent time of 58.69 seconds to earn Team SA a first medal on their quest to achieve a 10 medal haul in Brazil.
Reacting to his medal win, Van Der Burgh admitted that he was very pleased, as he knew that beating Peaty would take a mistake from the British swimmer.
“I came in thinking – if Adam makes mistakes I can perhaps take the gold but the real fight for me was to try and secure the silver which I did, so I’m super stoked achieving the objectives I set out to accomplish. Silver is a nice colour as well,” Van Der Burgh said, according to SuperSport.
“It’s an amazing feeling. I’m so flippin’ proud. Adding a silver to the gold – I can’t say I’m disappointed at all. The Olympics is such a massive stage and I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about walking out there again and getting on the podium again,” the South African swimmer exclaimed.
Paying tribute to Peaty’s excellent swimming throughout the event at the aquatics centre in Rio, Van der Burgh had kind words for his fellow breaststroke specialist.
“They’re unbelievable times. It’s really impressive. If you said a year ago someone would be going 57.1, I don’t think people would be believing it but kudos to the guy,” he added.
“He’s a great guy and great performer and a lot of us have some catching up to do so we’ll have another 12 months to have a crack at it and obviously watch what he’s doing better than what we’re doing and learn from that,” Van der Burgh explained.
