Le Clos plans Olympics surprise

CHAD le Clos’s coach, Graham Hill, says his protege will compete in more than two events at the Rio Olympics.

But apart from the obvious butterfly races, Hill does not want to reveal his star’s hand yet.

Hill said Le Clos’s plans would become public once the Olympic entries were submitted mid-year.

Le Clos will obviously compete in the two races in which he won medals at London 2012 – the 200m fly, in which he won gold, and the 100m fly, in which he shared silver.

At those games he also finished fifth in the 400m individual medley and made the final of the 200m individual medley (IM).

But Le Clos has not competed in the 400m IM at top level since then, and he is well outside the world top 20 in the shorter race.

The 200m freestyle seems like an option for him after he finished sixth at the 2015 world championships.

That perhaps puts him in the running if one considers that he was fifth in the 200m butterfly a year before London.

Another option is the 100m freestyle, the sport’s blue riband event, where Le Clos went 48.16sec last year.

But mitigating against that is the tight schedule for August 9.

The 100m freestyle semifinals will be held minutes before the 200m fly final, where Le Clos is the defending champion and arguably underdog to world recordholder Michael Phelps, who clocked the best time of 2015.

The last event of the night is the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay, a possible medal event also featuring Le Clos.

Le Clos and breaststroker Cameron van der Burgh, SA swimming’s other reigning champion from four years ago, both have a shot of changing 104 years of Olympic history as they bid to become the first South Africans to retain gold.

They are among 27 SA athletes to have finished first at a games, with their haul since 1908 totalling 23 golds.

Can Le Clos handle the demands of sprinting the 100m and then recovering in time for the 200m fly and the relay?

Does Hill rate one gold higher than two or three minor medals?

Those are the questions Hill doesn’t want to answer yet, but he says everything is on track.

“We’re in a very good space and we’re working nicely.

“It’s a big year for us and everyone around us. We know what we want to do.”

Hill said the SA team would be based in Europe from May before heading into camps in the US and then Brazil.

They would go to the athletes’ village in Rio in early August.