South Africa had mixed fortunes on the opening two days of swimming events at the World Championships in Melbourne with the much-hyped 4x100m freestyle relay team failing to make it to the podium.
The United States won the relay in a world championships record time of 3min 12.72sec, with South Africa finishing fourth. South Africa's Olympic and Commonwealth Games gold medallists - Roland Schoeman, Ryk Neethling, Gerhard Zandberg and Lyndon Ferns - finished in 3:14.77, faster than the 3:14.97 they swam at last year's Commonwealth Games.
As expected Schoeman will bid to win his first medal in the 50m butterfly when he goes into today's final with the second fastest time (23.49). Ian Crocker of the US set the pace with a 23.30.
In the backstroke, Gerhard Zandberg kept SA's flag flying when he won his 100m backstroke heat this morning, beating world record-holder Aaron Peirsol in the process.
Zandberg powered to the wall first in an African record of 54.83sec, leaving American Peirsol in second spot. Peirsol, the fastest in the world with 53.17sec, clocked 54.88. Markus Rogan of Austria (54.34) and Briton Liam Tancock (54.54) posted the fastest times swimming in earlier heats.
Up-and-coming breaststroker Cameron van der Berg erased one of the oldest SA records and in the process qualified for the Beijing Olympics when he set a 100m breaststroke time of 1:01.12 in the heats, bettering Brett Petersen's 1:01.42.
Pretoria's Suzaan van Biljon failed to qualify for the 100m breaststroke semis, falling short of her personal best by more than two seconds. Her favourite event, however, is the 200m breaststroke.
Also failing to qualify for the finals was Cape Town's Wendy Trott in the 400m freestyle, but her time of 4:13.92 improved on Melissa Corfe's SA and Africa record time of 4:14.23.
In other action, Pieter van den Hoogenband was the fastest qualifier in the men's 200m freestyle, just ahead of American Michael Phelps.