South Africa overtakes Nigeria on the medal table to occupy the second position behind Egypt after Team SA’s swimmers sign off with 46 medals
Team SA closed off the swimming part of the African Games in Ghana as the most successful nation in the pool. In doing so they accumulated 46 medals, which beats, by one, the number of medals they took from the 12th African Games, held in Morocco in 2019.
Catherine van Rensburg’s dominating display in the women’s 800m freestyle meant that she made a clean sweep of the 200, 400m, and 800m freestyle events, while also standing at the top of the podium after the women’s 400m IM earlier in the week.
Without taking the relays into account – and Team SA picked up six of those golds during the program – Van Rensburg secured four individual golds and a bronze to give her five medals. That made her the most successful Team SA swimmer at these Games and she also has a couple of relay medals to declare when she walks through customs on her arrival back at OR Tambo International.
Swimming’s 46 medals comprised 17 gold, 16 silver, and 13 bronze, and an incredible 16 different swimmers won two individual medals or more.
In delivering eight more medals, to go with the heartbreaking silver earned by the Team SA women’s cricket team, Team SA claimed nine medals in total on the night, which lifted them to 77 after starting the day on 68.