It’s common knowledge in local swimming circles that Ruard van Renen swam his way to no fewer than four qualifying times for the world short course championships in Budapest, Hungary later this year. What’s news though, is that the 21-year-old has already called quits on his swimming career, not once, but twice.
A product of Durbanville, Cape Town, his parents, Richter and Danelle, were big on boarding school so he spent his high school years at Paul Roos in Stellenbosch where he matriculated and then crossed the Atlantic to Athens, Georgia in the US where he is two years into a mechanical engineering degree
He credits his dad with starting his swimming career, literally thrown into the deep end. We had a small pool at home and one Sunday after a braai my dad just threw myself, my brother and sister into the pool and said we needed to learn to swim properly. My competitive side then kicked in and eventually I was kicking his butt so he gave up and it was just me and my siblings.
His first name is an unusual one and has just as an unusual origin. My parents’ friends had a son called Ruard who was the ring carrier at their wedding and just before I was born he passed away so my parents got permission to get his name and named me Ruard. He says, like many young Afrikaans children, he tried his hand at everything in primary school. In summer it was athletics and swimming and winter sports were rugby, biathle, triathlon, triathle, you name it. But then in Grade Six he’d had enough and decided to ditch swimming for rugby. My dad played first team for Paarl Boys’ High and my grandfather was a provincial player for Boland and Western Province.
Then came a definitive moment. I was selected for some zonal rugby team but then was also selected for the biathle team to world champs and my parents said I had to choose because the competitions were on the same day Worlds were the winner so he naturally had to pick up the swimming side of his sporting activities.
But it wasn’t long before he called it quits again after saying he hit some sort of plateau between Grades 8 & 10.It was before Covid-19 and I was feeling frustrated because I just wasn’t seeing results. Coming from a strong running background he picked up his biking and focused on triathlons but then a crime turned into a sign.
Six months into my triathlon career my bike was stolen from the hostel so that was my sign to get back into the pool. During Covid-19 he spent most of the hard lockdown at home doing bodyweight exercise and when restrictions were lifted his coach at the time, Keith Jansen, gave him some programmes.
There was a surprise in store for Van Renen. At my very first meeting, I dropped 2.5sec in all of my events. What a wake-up call and I realised I could now possibly get better scholarships. was also the small matter of a point to prove that was a burning fire within Van Renen. When I became a boarder, one of my coaches, Pierre de Roubaix, said it was the wrong move and I wouldn’t become a top swimmer, so I really wanted to prove him wrong.
How true…at the SA short course champs in Durban he set world champs qualifiers in 50m and 100m backstroke, 100m butterfly and 100m freestyle events. Only the legendary Chad le Clos was able to equal his qualifications this year. Not bad going for someone who once hotfooted it away from the pool one day while still at Durbanville primary school.
When I wanted to swim at my meeting I needed a letter from a coach saying that I could swim so my parents took me to Vineyard Club. My sister got her certificate, but I was too scared to jump into the pool and ran away to the car and my mom had to beg me. Eventually I went back and swam in board shorts and diving goggles and broke the school record.
Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel, but other times it takes me to places I couldn’t imagine Two of those places are China and Tunisia, along with many other countries. Speaking of the short course champs he says it was one for the books. After missing the team this year’s Olympics it hurt a lot and there were long and hard chats with my coaches so I knuckled down and got some great conditioning back in the States and going into the champs I knew I was fast, but I surprised even myself.
It was amazing to be right up there with Chad and go close to beating him. But this is only the start. Short term goals are world short course champs in Budapest and setting the bar even higher. He’ll be back in SA in April to book a qualifying course for world long distance championships in Singapore. It’s time to step out of the shadows and I already have a long-term plan for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. I finish college in two years so will then join the pro group in training.
Ennywealth
