Sunday night's sixth and final session of the Telkom SA Senior National Swimming Championships and Olympic Trials at Durban's King's Park Aquatic Centre lacked a lot of the drama and excitement of the penultimate session on Saturday, which centred on the men's 100m freestyle.
For a start, the women's 100m freestyle final turned out to be something of a damp squib following the withdrawal of top qualifiers Melissa Corfe and Lize-Marie Retief at the request of Swimming SA.
This was ostensibly to keep them fresh for a 4x100m medley relay team time trial later in the evening in an attempt to qualify for Beijing.
By the same token, why did our best female breaststroker, Suzaan van Biljon, not step down from the women's 50m breaststroke final, a non-Olympic event in any case?
But this was more than made up for by the performances in both the men's and women's 400m individual medley finals, which saw three more swimmers qualify for Beijing, bringing the total for the week to 21 by my unofficial reckoning, 14 men and seven women.
Riaan Schoeman had to do it all on his own in the men's final, but had the crowd behind him all the way as he scraped in just 0.38 of a second under the Olympic Qualifying Time.
"I am so relieved," he said. "My coach, Alisdair Hatfield, told me before the race: 'You have done the training, now go out and get that time.' "
The women's final was a thrilling encounter with the Cape's 16-year-old Jessica Pengelly opening up a body-length over Schoeman's stablemate, Kathryn Meaklin.
But Meaklim pulled out all the stops over the final 100m freestyle, closing in on Pengelly with every stroke so that they finished together, separated by only four-hundredths of a second. Pengelly was first in 4:41.35 and Meaklim second in 4:41.39, both under the OQT of 4:45.08.
The evening's programme began with a time trial for an Olympic berth for the SA men's 4x200m freestyle team, with an qualifying time of 7:20.07 required.
Making up the team were Jean Basson, Sebastien Rousseau, Jasper Venter and Darian Townsend, who went off in that order and whose individual times of 1: 45.85, 1:49.88, 1:50.02 and 1:49.46 gave them an overall time of 7:15.21, which met the criteria with 4.76 seconds to spare.
Their time was also an Africa and national record, the previous SA record dating back to 1995 where it was set at the All Africa Games by Paul Fryer, Mark Jollands, Ryk Neethling and Gary Albertyn.
Basson, who has qualified already to swim in the 200m and 400m freestyle at the Olympics, said that doing his bit to get the relay team qualified would do wonders for his confidence.
"It also made me realise what I can do when I am fully rested, after arriving at the championships only 24 hours before it started," he said.
"I believe I can definitely get into the finals of both my individual events, with a lot of training between now and then during our summer break."
Butterfly specialist Retief also withdrew from the 50m final of that stroke after breaking the Africa and SA record in the semi-finals with 26.48.
This opened the door for Elzanne Werth (CG) to take the title in 27.53,
The women's 100m free final saw Leone Vorster (NP) win in 57.02 from Elzanne Werth (CG, 57.75) and Trudi Maree (FS, 58.63).
Wendy Trott (WP) lowered her Africa and national women's 1 500m freestyle record by 15 seconds in a new time of 16:15.58 in Saturday's final.
With the names of the SA Olympic squad yet to be released officially, the pool talk was still about the men's 100m freestyle event in which the country's fastest sprinter, Roland Schoeman, failed to place in the first two for an Olympic qualification.
The gold and silver medals went to his fellow University of Arizona teammates Lyndon Ferns and Ryk Neethling.
Ferns said that based on these results, the SA men's 4x100m freestyle relay team will be right up there with the best of them in Beijing.
"I think we can pull it off again," he said, referring to the team's triumph in Athens.
Neethling said he had accomplished what he set out to do at these championships by qualifying for the 50m and 100m freestyle events.
The time trial for the women's 4x100m medley relay proved another winner as Corfe (backstroke, 1:01.14), Van Biljon (breaststroke, 1:08.28), Loots (butterfly, 58.82) and Retief (freestyle, 55.38) combined to get a time of 4:03.62 that was well under the qualifying time set for them of 4:07.36 to put them in line for a place at the Olympics.
The Fina criteria allow for 16 teams at the Olympics; 12 who have already qualified, and the four next fastest challengers.
As for the two men's relay teams, both the 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m medley teams have already qualified, with the 4x200m freestyle team also now in line.
The following 21 swimmers have met the criteria for the Beijing Olympics, but have to be officially approved by SSA:
Men: Jean Basson (200m and 400m free, 4x200m relay), Roland Schoeman (50m free, 100m free), Gideon Louw (50m free, 100m free), Lyndon Ferns (50m free, 100m free, 100m fly), Ryk Neethling (50m free, 100m free), Cameron van der Burgh (100m breast), Darian Townsend (200m free, 200m IM, 4x200m relay), William Diering (200m breast), Neil Versfeld (200m breast), Troyden Prinsloo (1500m free), Riaan Schoeman (400m IM), Sebastien Rousseau (4x200m relay), Jasper Venter (4x200m relay), Gerhard Zandberg (50m free, 100m back). George du Rand (100m back)
Women: Melissa Corfe (400m free, 200m back), Wendy Trott (400m and 800m free), Lize-Marie Retief (50m free, 100m fly), Suzaan van Biljon (100m and 200m breast), Mandy Loots (100m fly)
Jessica Pengelly (200m IM, 400m IM), Kathryn Meaklim (400m IM)
The following set new national records:
Men
Cameron van der Burgh - 100m breast 1:01.04 (final)
William Diering - 200m breast 2:11.88 (semi-final)
Sebastien Rousseau - 200m fly 1:58.73 (semi-final) and 1:58.03 (final)
Darian Townsend - 200m IM 2:01.05 (semi-final)
Women
Lize-Marie Retief - 50m free 25.50 (semi-final) and 25.24 (final); 50m fly 26.48 (semi-final); 100m fly 58.70 (semi-final) and 58.68 (final)
Melissa Corfe - 200m free 1:59.76 (final); 400m free 4:08.70 (final); 200m back 2:10.03 (final)
Wendy Trott - 1500m free 16:15.58 (final)
Jessica Pengelly - 200m IM 2:15.22 (semi-final)
Jessica Pengelly - 400m IM 4:41.35 (final)