Celebrating Olympic swimmer Kaylene Corbett with a huge surprise
Kaylene Corbett, 22, has returned from her Olympic debut in Tokyo, with her swimming dream firmly realised and all her goals exceeded.
Kaylene reached her personal goal at the Tokyo Olympics by swimming a personal best in the 200m breast stroke final! As a thank you to Kaylene for all her hard work and inspiration to young swimmers and women, Spar will give Kaylene R42,000 in Spar vouchers - that’s for monthly groceries for a year - to assist her with her preparations for the World Champs and Commonwealth Games.
Kaylene is currently visiting her very proud family in Port Elizabeth, before returning to Tuks for studies and, yes, training for the next big moment in the pool.
Kaylene finished 5th in the 200m breaststroke final, which her training partner at the TUKS Swimming Club, Tatjana Schoenmaker, spectacularly won in a world record time. Kaylene’s joy and celebration for her team mate and friend in the pool took the South African pride to an even higher level. Not only did Kaylene finish that final in the top 5, she too did it in her own personal best time. Leading up to the final, Kaylene won both her heat and semi-final with times of 2:22.48 and 2:22.08.
READ: "What? Is that my time?!" – Tatjana Schoenmaker tells of special Olympic moment
In the final, she shaved off even more, to finish in a PB time of 2:22.06. After the race, Kaylene was very emotional for Tatjana and also herself. She told the press that she came to Japan to swim a personal best - and that’s what she did. "I knew that I had to be brave and I had a verse stuck in my head that I'm carefully and wonderfully made, and because of that, I can be courageous and brave”.
The duo’s coach, Rocco Meiring, has all the reason in the world to be incredibly proud, and he has expressed this many times. "I take my hat off to her because she has been one of the swimmers I've coached that has faced the most challenges. She's an incredibly strong young lady and I told her, 'If you continue, your time will come' and I believed it,” says Meiring.
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The training and the hard work will resume soon. Next year it's the World Championships and Commonwealth Games, and Kaylene is already eyeing the podium at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
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